"Images," "Offenbach Overtures,"Beloved Renegade"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
New York City Center
New York, NY
February 25, 2009
by Lisa Rinehart
copyright 2009 by Lisa Rinehart
The Paul Taylor Dance Company's opening night program at City Center is a diorama of the mountains and valleys in Taylor's long and prolific career. "Images," a gloriously formal work from 1977, is mature Taylor; all swooping arms and bounding jumps constrained by unabashedly decorative poses. Fast forward twenty years to "Offenbach Overtures" and we have a search for inspiration in silliness -- not a comfortable fit for Taylor. Finally, the New York premier of "Beloved Renegade" walks us along the shimmering line between life's sweet engagements and the lure of eternal rest. It is elegiac Taylor at his most honest and introspective, and a telling premier for the winter season.
"Images," set to delicate piano pieces by Claude Debussy, has the feel of sacred dance. With strict formations and sometimes frightening symmetry, Taylor conjures pagan ritual that is enthralling, if slightly old-fashioned. Lines of dancers progress across the stage like figures on a Greek vase and predictably, body positions mimic the flattened dimensions of archaic statuary. It works however, and when the dancers make tight circles around a central figure, fanning their arms and revolving like a spinning blossom of appendages, it's one part exquisite and one part June Taylor dancers of 1955. Amy Young is powerful in the Oracle solo, surrendering to the spasms of the possessed, while the rest of the cast sometimes looks challenged by Taylor's muscular moves at breakneck speed.
As for "Offenbach Overtures," it's a crime to listen to a recording of Offenbach's rollicking score, but that's a bridge long crossed over and even live music can't save this piece from terminal cuteness. Taylor makes a lot of fun hiccupy steps and the dancers do their best to be comic, but Santo Loquasto's red and black costumes look like afterthoughts and the whole escapade feels forced. Call me a sourpuss, but I like my Taylor dark and dense.
Perhaps that explains why "Beloved Renegade" resonates so deeply. The program acknowledges the work as a commission in honor of James Harper Marshall by his wife and daughter, but it's hard to ignore the weight of a 79-year-old hand behind the dance. Coupling the celestial beauty of Francis Poulenc's Gloria with quotes from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Taylor tempers Whitman's self described "barbaric yawp" with an ethereal vision for the afterlife. As chiffon clad mortals run and jump and roll the body electric with clunky vigor, Laura Halzack is elegant as the merciful angel beckoning Michael Trusnovec home. There are sprightly friend duets, an intriguing little solo for Ms. Young and a chaste pas de deux for the minute Annmaria Mazzini with a bulky Robert Kleinendorst. (Is it my imagination or will the Taylor women soon fit into the palms of the Taylor men?) But it's Taylor's closing image of Trusnovec laying on the floor as Halzack balances over him in a stately slow turning attitude that haunts us. As the soprano's final notes hover in the air it feels as though that well worn hand is waving a calm farewell.
Photo top: Company in "Images" by Tom Caravaglia
Photo bottom: Company in "Offenbach Overtures" by unknown
