"Cloven Kingdom", "Sunset", "Excerpt from ‘Airs’", "Piazzolla Caldera"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
March 13, 2014
By Carol Pardo
copyright 2014 by Carol Pardo
Few events offer greater proof that "man is a social animal" than a gala evening at the theater. At this one, celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, the Paul Taylor Dance Company presented three works that share that theme: "Cloven Kingdom" (to which the quote is appended as a program note), "Sunset" and "Piazzolla Caldera". "Cloven" puts the accent on the animal, most famously the quartet for four men. It’s a wonderful dance, one which almost always brings down the house.At this performance, by Michael Apuzzo, Michael Novak, Michael Trusnovec and Francisco Graciano, it looked tighter and more focused than it has in some time. But once the animal instinct seemed to come from the inside out, from some primal place beyond consciousness, hands looked like paws, not an uncertain collection of positions: stiff, splayed, limp or not. Here that instinct looked pasted on from the outside, concept, cleverness and craft intact but without that visceral right hook shock of recognition "This is us!"
Rather it was the women who delicately and insidiously made Taylor’s message creep under the skin. Their long flowing dresses are all refined elegance. Their mirrored headgear, whether a giant sphere or an update on a 16th century Netherlandish coif, announce something extraterrestrial. The convex shape of their backs hints at an insect’s thorax. Michelle Fleet took that even further, articulating every muscle from her shoulders down, like a tiger stealthily stalking its prey.
"Sunset" and "Piazzolla Caldera" focus on the social animal’s need for warmth and companionship. The premise of "Sunset" is disarmingly simple: six men and four women meet in a park and flirt just before the men, in uniform, go off to war. Taylor has caught them on the knife’s edge: their carefree youth is ending and the only sure thing in their future is death, all too close at hand. Already, the men’s red berets stand out against Alex Katz’s verdant set like fresh blood.
This gala performance was beautifully cast. Sean Mahoney wooed Michelle Fleet gently, almost too shy to press his suit, his delicacy brought into high relief by the scale of his dancing. Mahoney has a wingspan that an albatross would envy. Aileen Roehl radiated joy as the girl who makes her way around the stage on the soldiers’ backs first descending a staircase then traversing the stage like Cleopatra conveyed down the Nile on a royal barge. Given the perch, terror would be more appropriate for most of us. The male duet was danced by the company’s two senior men, Michael Trusnovec, lithe and blond, Robert Kleinendorst, dark haired with a decided spring to his step. Taylor gives us a back story for both righ in the steps. In second grade, Kleinendorst must have been the class clown, elbowing people in the ribs to make sure they got the joke, Trusnovec the bookworm. Yet by the end of the dance, each had come to accept the other as he was. Finally, Michael Novak’s ardor when courting his lady love scared her away, leaving him to drop his head in defeat against the chest of the buddy who had egged him on, Bashful seeking consolation from Snow White.
Taylor is also a master at squeezing multiple allusions a single gesture. As the women entered, the men raised their arms, creating an archway to shelter their passage, an honor guard hailing the conquering hero(in)es, or saluting a pair of newlyweds exiting the church as man and wife. As "Sunset" drew to a close, one of the women raised her arm at exactly the same angle in farewell, tinged with regret and grief. Only Taylor would bring together Cleopatra, Bashful, a score that blended Elgar with recording of loon calls, and the multiple possibilities of a raised arm and turn them into an indictment of the futility and stupidity of war.
"Sunset" is a study in evanescence of human warmth and companionship, "Piazzolla Caldera" covers similar ground, but in a very different setting. Its seven men and five women hang out in a subterranean dive where tango is king. Restless, they keep changing partners looking for some connection. Pairing off, one woman remains an outsider, no matter how hard she tries. That woman has usually been danced by what might be called a demi-caractère dancer, short-ish, with some weight to her movement, not "Sports Illustrated" pretty but compelling on stage: Francie Huber and Annmaria Mazzini spring to mind. This time out, it was cast against type and didn’t work. Laura Halzack, tall, cool, glamorous with long, smooth line, didn’t project the rage or vulnerability, the sense of obstacles encountered and the effort to overcome them. The power of "Piazzolla" was diluted. However, Graciano and Apuzzo were beautifully matched in their boozy, blowsy duet.
As a palate cleanser before "Piazzolla", Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild, of the New York City Ballet, appeared in the pas de deux from "Airs." The two danced the piece barefoot. Although their accent on the airborne confirmed their ballet background, they looked happy and secure, even when she stood on his thigh, and fully alive to the music. Dance companies seek connections too; as a gesture of amity between two constituents of the David H. Koch Theater and as an amuse-bouche for an attentive and enthusiastic gala audience, their presence of the two colleagues and guests was a great success.