American Dance Festival Celebrates the Work of Paul Taylor through dance and film
When Paul Taylor, aged 88, passed away in August, 2018, it marked the end of a remarkable career that spanned more than 50 years, an era that saw modern dance expand from its earliest beginnings to an international force in performance. Taylor worked with all the most significant choreographers of his time, beginning with Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, and on to Charles Weidman, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine. Along the way he choreographed nearly 150 different dances, a lifetime of compositions that today form an eclectic repertoire still performed by his company today.
For many years, the Paul Taylor Dance Company has been a regular presence at the American Dance Festival (ADF), like the Lincoln Center, an annual date on the Taylor calendar.
Like many other choreographers, Taylor got some of his earliest dance experience at the ADF itself. According to his PBS American Master bio, the 22-year-old college athlete landed a work scholarship at the ADF in the summer of 1952 (when Connecticut College in New London, CT, was the festival's home base). By 1955, he had landed a soloist position with Martha Graham's company, creating the role of Aegisthus in Graham's Clytemnestra, her only full-length ballet.
The American Dance Festival is dedicating its 2019 season to Paul Taylor and his legacy, through a series of performances and special events. 2019 is also the 50th year that the company has performed at ADF, which commissioned many of Taylor's original works.
Classics Redux
Recreations of classics from Taylor, Graham and Merce Cunningham bracket this year' festival calendar.
On the opening weekend (June 13-15), Taylor 2, a select group of dancers that takes the choreographer's works around the world, performs Piazzolla Caldera, Taylor's 1997 take on Argentine tango, as part of the ICONS program. Also included in ICONS:
- The Graham 2 company will perform Martha Graham’s Diversion of Angels (1948).
- Stephen Petronio Company will recreate Merce Cunningham’s Tread (1970).
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| Piazzolla Caldera |
The same three choreographers are represented in the Footprints performance (July 19-20), which traditionally closes out the ADF season. The dancers this time are students attending the ADF Summer classes, who have been studying the pieces recreated by experts in the individual choreographers' styles.
Also on the Footprints program: Martha Graham’s Dark Meadow Suite and Merce Cunningham’s How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run.
Sandwiched between, the full Paul Taylor Dance Company will be in residence June 27-29, performing two different programs to give fans the chance to sample the wide range of Taylor's creativity.
Program A, on Thursday and Saturday evenings, includes three Taylor classics never before seen on the ADF stage:
Aureole (1962), considered Taylor's first major success;
Scudorama (1963), a dark piece Taylor prefaced with a quote from Dante's Inferno;
Promethean Fire, a 2002 work choreographed in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Program B, scheduled for Friday night includes:
Airs (1978), set to music by Handel;
Dust (1977), described by one critic as "a Goya-like vision of hell-in-life;"
Company B (1991), a recollection through dance of life in the WWII era set to songs by the Andrews Sisters.
The company will also give a Children's Matinee on Saturday afternoon.
Taylor Extras
In addition to the Taylor dancers, a number of people important to the Taylor legacy will be in Durham during the run of ADF.
Bettie de Jong, Taylor's long time dance partner and rehearsal director, part of the company since 1962, will receive the 2019 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching award before the June 27 performance. De Jong is credited with dedicating more than fifty years of her life to preserving Taylor's work and teaching his dancers his style.
Pre- and post-performance talks will be moderated by Suzanne Carbonneau, a distinguished writer on dance whose credits include the Washington Post and New York Times. Currently she serves as Artistic Advisor to Paul Taylor American Modern Dance. Her authorized biography of choreographer Paul Taylor is due out soon from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
In addition, at noon on Friday, June 28, Carbonneau and Taylor company artistic director Michael Novak will discuss the choreographer's legacy and importance during a free program at the Ruby Lounge in the Rubenstein Arts Center next to the Nasher on the West Duke campus. The talk, which includes a complimentary lunch, is part of the ADF's Ruby Friday series.
In addition, at noon on Friday, June 28, Carbonneau and Taylor company artistic director Michael Novak will discuss the choreographer's legacy and importance during a free program at the Ruby Lounge in the Rubenstein Arts Center next to the Nasher on the West Duke campus. The talk, which includes a complimentary lunch, is part of the ADF's Ruby Friday series.
The majority of the Taylor performances take place in the Reynolds Industries Theater on Duke's West Campus. An exhibit of photographs spanning Paul Taylor's career will hang in the theater's lobby June 13-July 20.
The film "Paul Taylor: Creative Domain" will screen on
Wednesday, June 26 at 5 pm, at Duke's Rubenstein Film Center followed by a Q&A with Robert Aberlin, executive producer of the doc and Paul Taylor Dance Company board member. The 2014 documentary follows Taylor's creation of a single dance, offering an unequaled look inside the creative process of this legendary - and elusive - master.
Like the other films on the ADF's Movies By Movers film festival calendar, admission to the screening is free.
