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Paul Taylor Dance Company Family Matinee Saturday, May 2, 2pm
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visible—or, in turn, have you fairly bust a gut laughing.”
—Boston Globe
About This Performance
“To put it simply, I make dances because I can’t help it.” Paul Taylor has been communicating through dance for more than five decades and what he can’t express in words he expresses through movement. See the Paul Taylor Dance Company communicate with young audiences as they share Paul’s dances, as well as some behind-the-scene secrets.
Artist Biography
Few artists of our time have had the profound impact on their art form that Paul Taylor has had on dance. People in cities and towns throughout the world have seen and enjoyed live modern dance performances due largely to the far-reaching tours he pioneered as a virtuoso dancer in the 1950s, and that his two companies have continued to this day. Fifty years after he made his first avant-garde works, he has a collection of 127 dances performed by his own celebrated Company and Taylor 2 as well as renowned dance companies here and abroad. He has set movement to music so memorably that for millions it is impossible to hear certain orchestral works and popular songs and not think of his dances. He has influenced dozens of men and women who have gone on to create their own dances and/or establish their own troupes. As the subject of the widely seen documentary, Dancemaker, and author of a critically acclaimed autobiography, he has demystified his creative process as few artists ever have. At 77, Paul Taylor may be the most sought-after choreographer working today, commissioned by leading companies, theaters and presenting organizations the world over.
Paul Taylor grew up near Washington, DC. He was a swimmer and a student of art at Syracuse University in the late 1940s until he discovered dance, which he began studying at Juilliard. By 1954 he had assembled a small company of dancers. A commanding performer, he joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1955 for the first of seven seasons as a soloist while continuing to make dances with his own troupe. In 1959 he danced with New York City Ballet as guest artist in George Balanchine's Episodes. Having created the slyly funny 3 Epitaphs in 1956, he captivated dancegoers in 1962 with his virile grace in the landmark Aureole. After retiring as a performer in 1975, Taylor devoted himself fully to choreography, and classics poured forth: Esplanade; Cloven Kingdom; Airs; Arden Court; Lost, Found and Lost; Last Look; Roses; Musical Offering; Company B; Piazzolla Caldera; Promethean Fire and dozens more. Celebrated for uncommon musicality, he has set dances to Ragtime and reggae, tango and Tin Pan Alley, telephone time announcements and loon calls; turned elevator music and novelty tunes into high art; and found particularly cooperative collaborators in JS Bach, GF Handel and their Baroque brethren.
During the 1950s, the choreographer began to bring modern dance to America's college campuses and small towns as well as larger cultural centers, and in 1960 his Company made its first international tour. It has since performed in more than 500 cities in 62 countries, and has often served as the nation's official cultural ambassador overseas. In 1966 the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation was established to help bring Taylor's works to the largest possible audience, facilitate his ability to make new dances, and preserve his growing repertoire.
Paul Taylor has received every important honor bestowed to artists by the United States and France. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 1993. In 1992 he was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and received an Emmy Award for Speaking in Tongues, produced by WNET/New York the previous year. In 1995 he received the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts, and was named one of 50 prominent Americans honored in recognition of their outstanding achievement by the Library of Congress's Office of Scholarly Programs. He was elected to knighthood by the French government as Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1969 and has since been elevated to the ranks of Officier (1984) and Commandeur (1990). In January 2000 he was awarded France's highest honor, the Légion d'Honneur, for exceptional contributions to French culture.
Taylor is the recipient of three Guggenheim Fellowships and has received honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from California Institute of the Arts, Connecticut College, Duke University, Juilliard, Skidmore College, the State University of New York at Purchase, and Syracuse University. Awards for lifetime achievement include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—often called the "genius award"—and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award. Other awards include the New York State Governor's Arts Award and the New York City Mayor's Award of Honor for Art and Culture. In 1989 he was elected one of ten honorary American members of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Since 1968, when Aureole first entered the repertory of the Royal Danish Ballet, Taylor's works have been licensed for performance by more than 75 companies worldwide. In 1993 he formed Taylor 2, which brings many of the choreographer's masterworks to smaller venues around the world. Taylor 2 also teaches the Taylor style in schools and workplaces and at community gatherings. Paul Taylor's autobiography, Private Domain, originally published by Alfred A. Knopf and re-released by North Point Press and later by the University of Pittsburgh Press, was nominated by the National Book Critics Circle as the most distinguished biography of 1987. Taylor and his Company are the subject of Dancemaker, Matthew Diamond's award-winning, Oscar-nominated film, hailed by Time as "perhaps the best dance documentary ever."
Links/Downloads
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