The Joyce Theater has a short, happy residence from the Paul Taylor Dance Company in a program called Extreme Taylor. The program shows off Paul Taylor’s astonishing emotional range, as well as this very talented company as it continues to forge a path after Taylor’s death.
The first piece on the program was the most enigmatic. Private Domain (1969) opens with a stage that is largely obscured. Dancers are only visible through archways. When it debuted a critic called the dancing “an orgy in a cathedral”. I personally thought maybe the dancers were meant to be models, as they are scantily clad in swimwear, and at times they pose in the archways with the self-consciousness and self-absorption of fashion models. When they start dancing, they relate to each other in a way that’s less erotic and more narcissistic. There is a lot of literal navel-gazing.
The music by Iannis Xenalis tells a stranger story. The notes sound random, the noises (like screeching, doors closing) like a busy cityscape. And after awhile, Private Domain is like being a voyeur for that neighbor across the street. You can peak at the dancers, wonder about their relationships, but so much of it is obscured that it remains a mystery. Perhaps Taylor was making an analogy about the dance world, which is famously insular and hard for outsiders to truly comprehend?
Duet (1964) is the opposite of Private Domain. It’s warm and romantic. Set to music by Franz Joseph Haydn, a man and a woman joyfully romp together. They could be at the beach or at a picnic. Devon Louis and Maria Ambrose were delightful in this brief piece. The small, intimate Joyce Theater was perfect for Duet.
Pause, and then Big Bertha (1970), perhaps the single most disturbing dance of all time. A family (mother, father and daughter) innocently put coins into an automaton doll named Bertha at a carnival. Bertha comes alive, and soon hypnotizes the entire family to start dancing in the same herky-jerky, robotic way. Then it gets more deranged. The father loses it and starts raping the daughter (all graphically depicted onstage). When it ended, the audience was so shocked it could barely applaud.
The evening ended with Airs, another crowd-pleasing masterpiece originally set on American Ballet Theatre. Just as Alvin Ailey usually ends with Revelations, Paul Taylor programs usually end with either Esplanade, Airs or Company B. Airs seems to take place in heaven. In fact, what the ballet Airs most reminds me of is Balanchine’s Chaconne. The dancers (to lovely music by Handel) float across the stage. The men accompany the women with courtly elegance.
Airs is the one work that did not benefit from the Joyce stage. It’s too expansive. It needed a larger stage to breathe.
The dancers are magnificent. There’s tiny Madelyn Ho, anchoring Airs with her unique joy. Kristin Draucker as the mom in Big Bertha was terrifying as she sank more into depravity. Alex Clayton, so handsome and strong in Airs.
This program at the Joyce is inexplicably only programmed four times this week. It was a priceless chance to see some of the best and rarest of Paul Taylor.
