"Images", "Last Look", "Offenbach Overtures"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
New York City Center
March 11, 2009
by Mary Cargill
copyright 2009 by Mary Cargill
This typical Taylor program took the audience through a variety of emotions, from the sublime ("Images") through the tragic ("Last Look") to the sublimely ridiculous ("Offenbach Overtures"), and was yet another reminder of how multi-faceted his dancemaking is. The 1977 "Images" evokes Ancient Crete, by way of piano music by Claude Debussy, unfortunately, as has been the case for a number of years, heard on a recording. There is a feeling of various rituals, ranging from an intimation of sacrifice, a celebration of spring, a mating dance, and a group celebration. Annmaria Mazzini, with Robert Kleinendorst, was especially notable in the mating dance, womanly, in control, seductive without a trace of coyness. The men got equal time with Michael Trusnovec's confident, powerful, and irresistible performance as a man who feels he can have any woman he wants. Ancient Crete was probably not this much fun, but it should have been.
"Last Look" is no fun at all, with its unsparing view of exhausted, brutalized soldiers and equally exhausted and brutalized bar girls. This is no glib "man bad woman good" view of war; as badly as the men behave, Taylor never lets the audience forget that these are young men are as trapped as their victims. Trusnovec, with his fresh-faced innocent demeanor, brought a touching humanity to his portrayal of a soldier, trying so tentatively to make contact. His last look in the mirror, where he sees the person he might have been and confronts the person he has become was unbelievably haunting.
Trusnovec was also featured in the frothy "Offenbach Overtures", Taylor's affectionate but clear-eyed take on the frilly affectations of French ballet. Dying may not be easy (it certainly isn't in "Last Look") but comedy is hard, and "Offenbach, after some slightly snippy reviews when it was first danced, has proven to be a sturdy and rare example of a sure-fire laugh--not just because of the few obvious jokes (the grand ballerina who keeps getting dropped), but because of the wit and skill and pure joyous inventiveness of the steps, which matches the gloriously infectious music. Analysing comedy is like poking a bubble with a stick to see what it is made of, and "Offenbach Overtures" is something to be savored gratefully, not something to pick apart. Parisa Khobdeh proved to be a fine successor to Lisa Viola's dim little dance girl; she was vacant while Viola was deadpan, rubbery where Viola was sharp, and made the role her own with her delicate timing and expressive sneer. The prissy duel between the Army and the Navy (Trusnovec and Sean Mahoney, with their lumpy sidekicks Kleinendorst and Jeffery Smith) remains one of the funniest five minutes in danceland, and it is impossible to think of the choreography of "Onegin" with a straight face.
Copyright 2009 by Mary Cargill
Photo: Michelle Fleet in "Images" by Eduardo Patino.
