Now, Taylor is 78 and the recipient of every imaginable artistic award, including three Guggenheim fellowships and a MacArthur "genius" grant. He received an Emmy Award and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1992, the National Medal of the Arts in 1993 and the French Lgion d'Honneur in 2000, and has gained numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities. Taylor was the subject of the Oscar-nominated film, "Dancemaker" (1998), and has mentored a new generation of dancers and choreographers, with several former members of his company having formed their own performance groups.
Taylor and the Paul Taylor Company will bring their inimitable style of dance to Moore Theater in the Hopkins Center for the Arts this week. The program will feature two existing works from Taylor's repertoire, along with the debut of "Now Playing." This piece, Taylor's 130th, is set to the music of Gaetano Donizetti and was co-commissioned by the Hop.
Following the premiere of "Now Playing," the dance company will perform "Beloved Renegade," which made its debut at New York City Center in November 2008. The piece is more narrative, the plot more obvious and the mood more religious than Taylor's usual works. The lines and movements, however, are still distinctly his own.
"Beloved Renegade" is separated into six segments, each titled after a different quote from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." The piece has a central male lead playing a poet, perhaps representative of Taylor himself, who observes several other characters -- a couple falling in love, children playing, soldiers dying from war, their loved ones at home.
In the final part, the poet begins dancing with his muse. This underscores the sacred air about the entire piece, which is marked by minimal staging, simple costumes and choral music -- Francis Poulenc's "Gloria."
The company will conclude its performance with "Esplanade," the signature piece which made its debut in 1975. "Esplanade," an audience and critic favorite, incorporates all of Taylor's signatures -- fluidity, strength and powerful feeling. It recalls a group of lovers by the sea, running and sliding as if mimicking the waves they see. Audiences will find few pirouettes and actual "dance" elements in this Taylor work, as he is known for connecting everyday physical movements (slips, falls and lifts) into lyrical routines. While his dancers' lines recall those of Taylor's mentor, Graham, "Esplanade" moves at a much faster pace to demonstrate the physicality demanded of a Taylor soloist.
Taylor -- himself 6' 3'', unusually tall for a dancer -- places emphasis on height. The male dancers in his company are almost always taller than the average male. Where his pieces sacrifice balance, they compensate for it with extraordinary muscularity and amplitude.
In one segment of "Esplanade," the women are lifted and spun around by their male counterparts one after another. The company's lifts are much higher than those of other companies.
"Esplanade" is set to Bach's Violin Concerto in E Major and Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor. While this music choice may seem very traditional, Taylor has composed dances to reggae and tango tunes as well. Taylor selects music that inspires him but is usually also familiar to the audience.
Despite Taylor's genius and popularity, the Paul Taylor Company has not been immune to the effects of the economic crisis. The music for the company's performances is now provided by audio recordings, a budget-cutting measure often bemoaned by critics such as Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times. The Hop performance will also use audio recordings rather than a live orchestra.
In October 2008, the group was forced out of its long-time home in Manhattan to make room for an expansion of the Banana Republic downstairs. The Taylor Foundation, founded in 1966, now works to preserve Taylor's legacy by supporting the creation of new dances and reaching out to broader audiences.
Dance scholar Suzanne Carbonneau, a professor at George Mason University, will give a pre-performance lecture about Taylor's work on Tuesday, April 7 at 6 p.m. Carbonneau and Taylor will dicuss Taylor's career in a session on Wednesday April 8 at 12 p.m.
