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PrintA Summer’s Night with the Paul Taylor Dance Company
The Paul Taylor Dance Company always surprises. An unexpected change in their program altered the mood of the opening performance. A tribute to Vaudeville became, instead, the lovely "Brandenburgs" danced to two Bach concertos. Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times described the dance as "the choreographer's great gift for simple-looking but intricate stage patterns…The ardently gracious women spin [and] the men lumber and thunder at breakneck speed like football-playing gods." Evident were Mr. Taylor's signature moves of unexpected entrances and exits and clearly defined shapes. What made this dance so delightful was its pure movement. The dancers draped in green and other earth tones, all swept across the stage like leaves blown by the wind, at moments skimming the ground and then tossed through the air.
Mr. Taylor's second program, commissioned by the Wolf Trap Foundation and the American Dance Festival, was the most controversial of the night. "Phantasmagoria" is a bizarre, illusionary ensemble of disconnected dances with Renaissance music as the only link. A quote by Lewis Carroll, "Life, what is it but a dream?" alerted the audience that something odd was about to happen; and indeed the stage became "curiouser and curiouser" with each new section. The drama of suffering Flemish peasants burst into a fast circle dance. A not-so-celibate nun entered right out of The Canterbury Tales. Two exotic dancers performed with a fake serpent, then out stepped "an Irish Stepper" (all of dubious authenticity). Softly draped "Isadorables" flounced about and finally a drunken hobo stumbled across.
The last piece, "Beloved Renegade," is a deep personal interpretation of Walt Whitman's transcendentalism to Francis Poulenc's powerful music "Gloria." The voices were exquisite. Michael Trusnovec portrayed a wanderer with great dignity and strength. Solos, duets, and ensembles intermingled at times delicately, at others with heightened intensity and even sensuality and spirituality. A beautiful woman, like an angel, beckoned to those around her. Groups reclined on the floor amid all the fast footwork and adagios around them. The struggle of life, love, and death was apparent in Whitman's quote in the final company tableau at twilight, "I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love."
For more information about concerts and master classes at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, link to http://www.nps.gov/wotr/index.htm