The Mysterious Side of Paul Taylor

Two Evenings at the Joyce Theater

Eran Bugge in “Post Meridian.” Photo by Ron Thiele.

The choreographer Paul Taylor is best known for his sunny, aerobic, heart-on-the-sleeve dances, works like “Esplanade” and “Airs” in which the dancers throw themselves into the movement with an abandon that is both invigorating and almost sacrificial. Power, speed, and a gliding momentum drive them across the stage, down to the floor, up into the air. A glance at the dancers’ bodies, which are built in the heroic mode, says it all. But the dancers have another side that is just as important to his style, and more interesting: an openness in their demeanor, and a soft manner with each other. It is a company in which the dancers look each other in the eye and touch each other the way people do in real life, with warmth.

This combination of warmth and heroism, which first coalesced in works like the 1962 “Aureole,” is the crowd-pleasing Taylor, the one that has ensured his company’s long survival but also turned the avant-garde against him and led many to feel that the work, however well-crafted, is a little old hat, too smiley, bordering on bland. It is a feeling I’ve had at times myself, though I confess to an adoration for “Esplanade,” which I consider one of the great dances, period.

For the last twelve years, the company has performed seasons at the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, home of the New York City Ballet. (Before that, the seasons were held in the more intimate City Center.) Bigger theater, more seats, greater exposure. But something important was lost: the connection with the audience. Modern dance isn’t like ballet; it’s more grounded, less stylized, and more personal. The dancers’ individuality matters. And so for the last decade, I’ve found that the Taylor seasons felt a little remote, lacking in electricity.

But last week, the company, led since the death of Taylor by the former dancer Michael Novak, held its second short run at the Joyce, a small theater that seats about 500. The two programs contained a batch of seldom-seen works, almost all of them in a much stranger, and in some cases ominous vein. (Each program ended with a conventional choice, either “Brandenburgs” or “Airs.”) Here was the unsettling, weird, wild Taylor, and boy does this part of his repertory explode the clichés around his work.

One program included “Private Domain” (1969), a study of, as Taylor has written, “bare skin and voyeurism” alongside the chilling tale of American wholesomeness gone wrong, “Big Bertha” (1970). The other contained the ritualistic “Runes” (1975) and the enigmatic “Post Meridian” (1965). The overall impression was one of choreographic invention and wildness. The dancers performed with their usual attack, but here you could really see them. Eran Bugge, the veteran, deployed her sly, understated sultriness. Christina Lynch Markham, an almost frightening ferocity in “Runes.” (She retired at the end of the run.) Devon Louis exudes poetry; Shawn Lesniak, classicism; Maria Ambrose’s dancing is a mix of sensuality and pliancy

Lisa Borres and Austin Kelly in “Runes”. Photo by Steven Pisano.

The two pieces that surprised the most were “Runes” and “Post Meridian”. The latter gets the prize for weirdest sound-score, a loopy recording of a distorted voice, followed by squeaks and hisses, by the contemporary American composer Evelyn Lohoefer de Boeck. The dancers were dressed in color-block, gloved leotards and tights by the New York artist Alex Katz. As they stared out, deadpan, they curved their torsos into concave and convex shapes, squatted down, bounced or tilted, or folded themselves in sculptural groups. At times their movement were funny, but the dancers never gave away the joke; a sheen of deadpan absurdity was maintained. At the end, they posed in odd groupings, staring out, almost as if for a family portrait.

“Runes,” set to an atonal score for piano by Gerald Busby, took place under a moon (lighting by Jennifer Tipton) that slowly shifted across the rear of the stage. The theme was death, and the rituals that surround it, including what looked very much like a religious procession. In a central spot there is a body, around which other bodies enact mysterious rites, creating symbols and semaphores. A few of the men wore furry backpacks, designed by “George Tacet, PhD,” Taylor’s alter-ego. What they signified, who can tell, except that they, and the general vibe, suggested that this was a primitive society. Figures took turns lying on the ground, and the idea of death became interchangeable, impersonal. Fertility was also alluded to, in a section in which Devon Louis danced a beautiful adagio while surrounded by women lying with their legs spread wide. Then he joined the circle of women, with his legs open wide. Who was fertilizing whom?

“Big Bertha” is better known, but nevertheless shocking. An all-American family of three goes to a carnival and feeds coins into a carnival organ, presided over by a jerky automaton. At first, it’s all cuteness and ballroom tunes, until, little by little, everything goes sideways. The little girl starts to show some leg while twirling a little too enthusiastically. The loving father slaps his wife, and then gropes his daughter, dragging her behind the circus machine to rape her. The mother tears off her clothes and performs a striptease. This mayhem seems to be directed by the mechanical doll, with its maniacal expressions and stiff-legged lunges. Or is it? Paul Taylor originally played the role of the father, which tells you a lot about what he thought of the hypocrisy of the morally upstanding middle class, and the darker side of sexuality.

Lee Duveneck, Christina Lynch Markham, Eran Bugge, and Kristin Draucker in “Big Bertha.” Photo by Ron Thiele.

Sexuality dominates “Private Domain” as well. The set and costumes, by Alex Katz, evoke a peep show. The dancers wear only underwear and are both revealed and concealed by a series of panels at the front of the stage. They exhibit themselves, like sex workers in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, vamping for potential customers, acting out fetishes. A man grinds his pelvis in slow motion. Another kneels in front of a woman’s groin, placing his hands on her thighs. Acrobatic threesomes appear and disappear. The dancers are reduced to body parts, butts sliding against the floor, hands grabbing imaginary breasts. Meanwhile, one of them, Shawn Lesniak, performs a beautiful solo full of Apollonian arabesques.

Lisa Borres and Shawn Lesniak in “Private Domain.” Photo by Ron Thiele.

In his memoir, also entitled “Private Domain,” Taylor describes a several-days-long stretch of debauchery in Liverpool, involving pills and alcohol and sex in various permitations. This leads Taylor to attempt to describe his own sexuality. In the end he gives up. “If I could figure out sex,” he writes, “I could figure out life.” That confusion is laid out onstage, for all to see—he doesn’t try to dress it up.

In works like these, he turned the mysterious corners of his mind into choreography. He was willing to go there, to be un-pleasing, to expose his weird and contrary imagination. Aren’t we lucky.