Paul Taylor Dance Company: Churchyard explores sacred and profane

The Paul Taylor Dance Company’s Joyce Theater residencies have been traditionally devoted to the lesser known works of Paul Taylor. Last year, they revived Private Domain. There will be one chestnut (at the performance I saw, it was Esplanade), but the focus is on the works that do not routinely get performed. 

The program I saw had had a major reconstruction. Director Michael Novak restored the piece through a mix of grainy video and notes and memories from former Taylor members Bettie de Jong and Nicholas Gunn. 

Paul Taylor’s Churchyard (1969) is one of Taylor’s classic sacred vs. profane studies. Think The Word or Dust or The Rite of Spring. Churchyard starts with a woman wearing what looks to be a nun’s habit (Elizabeth Chapa, majestic and forbidding). Medieval tunes accompany the dancers in what seems to be a chaste, even pious dance. There are imitations of the formal baroque dance styles, as everyone is neatly paired off minus the solo nun. 

But midway through the dance, things start to get a little … well, a little freaky. The costumes change into red and gray bodysuits with bulges. The dancers cavort and prance, the moves openly sexual. Women are carried upside down, legs wrapped around the men. The dancers jump like frogs. They scratch their behinds. Sometimes all the dancers gyrate furiously, as if trying to shake the devil out of them. The medieval religious tunes become ironic, as what is happening onstage becomes increasingly ungodly.  

Churchyard is an important Taylor reconstruction. Besides being equal parts disturbing and entertaining as only Taylor can be (Big Bertha!), the work draws a through line with some common later Taylor themes. I hope it can be brought back regularly in the company’s longer season at the David Koch Theater.

The other reconstruction, Tablet, was not as revelatory. The Ellsworth Kelly designs and costumes are fun to look at, but the actual piece is a brief duet for two dancers that does not convey much. Unlike Churchyard, Tablet doesn’t seem like a distinctive part of the Taylor oeuvre. The white-face on the dancers and the somewhat stylized movement suggests a commedia dell’arte duet. The dancers even make a heart-shape with their arms joining. But the music (by David Hollister) is rather generically dissonant, and the whole piece lacks atmosphere. I did enjoy watching Kristin Draucker and Devon Louis. Louis is one of the finest dancers in the company. 

The evening ended with the evergreen Esplanade. There is no way to ruin Esplanade. Such an infectiously joyful, happy piece. For dance enthusiasts, it is fun to see different generations of dancers cycle through Esplanade (much the way balletomanes often will go back to Balanchine’s Nutcracker to see a favorite ballerina debut as Sugar Plum Fairy.) I enjoyed seeing a new (to me) “running girl”, Jada Pearman. She is tiny and quick, and looks a lot like Carolyn Adams (the role’s originator). 

One quibble: at barely 90 minutes, it was a very short evening. Surely, they could have added another work?