Above: Paul Taylor
Wednesday March 12th, 2014 - Paul Taylor Dance Company performing AIRS, AMERICAN DREAMER and MERCURIC TIDINGS at Lincoln Center tonight. This was to have been their opening night performance but with their characteristic spirit of adventure, the Company announced an added performance for March 11th, with all seats priced at $6.00, which sold out immediately. Celebrating their 60th anniversary season in high style, tonight's program showed why Paul Taylor is one of the all-time masters of dance.
AIRS is a work of pure genius; if someone were to ask me "What's so great about Paul Taylor?" I would probably tell them to watch AIRS. Premiered in 1978 and set to music by Georg Friedrich Händel, this ballet encapsulates all that is wondrous about the Taylor style: the signature moves and port de bras always so skillfully meshed with the music; the eye-pleasing waves of entrances and exits as various mix-and-match units of dancers sweep across the stage; the effortless mixture of strength, grace and touches of wit in the partnering; the lyricism of the women and the dynamic power of the men; and - perhaps most captivating - the seeming inevitability and rightness of Mr. Taylor's musicality wherein even the simple act of walking can become a means of poetic expression.
Tonight's performance of AIRS allowed us to savor the distinctive gifts of the individual Taylor dancers; though there are only seven people onstage, the work seems magically larger. The trio of the Company's senior men - Michael Trusnovec, Robert Kleinendorst and James Samson (all blessedly handsome and god-like) - showed us yet again the major impact Paul Taylor's choreography has had in the field of male dancing. Thanks to Terpsichore, muse and mother of dance, for giving us the pure beauty of Laura Halzack: her line and her elegant sense of timing always leave me breathless. And few dancers today can match the intrinsic perfection of Michelle Fleet: both here and in the closing work MERCURIC TIDINGS, Ms. Fleet's personal energy and charismatic allure were much admired. Eran Bugge, in a duet with Michael Trusnovec, brings a natural sense of warmth and quiet wonder to the stage. And in another duet of sprightly charm and fancy footwork, Aileen Roehl and Robert Kleinendorst were an especially winning combination.
For AMERICAN DREAMER, Paul Taylor turned to the songs of Stephen Foster, from a wonderful recording by the great American baritone Thomas Hampson. The ballet was first given in 2013. Though it's a type of dancework I'm not very fond of - quasi-narrative and on the cute side - there's no denying the Taylor dancers did a great job of it, notably Sean Mahoney as a lovelorn cow-poke and the always-brilliant Francisco Graciano.
MERCURIC TIDINGS dates from 1982 and is set to music of Franz Schubert. This celebratory work makes for a perfect finale to a grand night of dancing. Ms. Halzack was again compellingly radiant, and Mr. Trusnovec's physique and presence command the stage at all times. Michelle Fleet's extraordinary beauty of movement finds perfect expression in this ballet, and Heather McGinley is such a striking woman, luring the eye whenever she is onstage. Eran Bugge and Aileen Roehl followed up on their lovely performances in AIRS with more stellar dancing here, and Company newcomers Christina Lynch Markham and Kristi Tornga (who I'd seen previously dancing with TAKE Dance and Annmaria Mazzini's troupe) both did very well. The splendid Taylor men - Mssers. Trusnovec, Kleinendorst, Mahoney, and Graciano joined by Michael Apuzzo and George Smallwood - looked vividly sexy and energetic. MERCURIC TIDINGS swept forward on the melodious waves of symphonic Schubert, eliciting a warm ovation for the dancers and a veritable tidal wave of cheers when Paul Taylor appeared for a bow: it's not every day one sees a living legend, and that he most surely is.
Onward with the season!!