Paul Taylor, Past to Present

The height of summer has arrived to New York’s lush and idyllic Hudson Valley. Tonight, in addition to music credited on the official program, we are treated to a chorus of crickets and tree frogs in the open-air pavilion of PS21 Center for Contemporary Performance. For ninety minutes the Paul Taylor Dance Company will bring to life a version of the company’s past. In a selection of four works first performed between 1956 and 1999, the company will challenge us with one of the more classical of the Taylor repertory, then immediately lighten the mood with humor, offer a touch of abstraction, and end with a rush of dramatic energy that will sweep us away—all of it showing the current company of Taylor trained dancers at their very best.

Performance

Paul Taylor Dance Company: “Cascade,” “3 Epitaphs,” “Tablet” by Paul Taylor / “Vespers”by Ulysses Dove

Place

PS21 Center for Contemporary Performance, Chatham, New York, August 9, 2025

Words

Karen Hildebrand

Paul Taylor Dance Company in “Tablet” by Paul Taylor. Photograph by Steven Taylor

“Cascade,” first shown in 1999, is a mannered piece that shows off the signature Taylor coiled energy, crisp leg work and ecstatic port de bras, with just enough quirkiness to make you wonder if you’re being hoodwinked. Baroque in tone for twelve dancers, I picture courtly couples dancing something that resembles the Minuet. As a couple sways forward to meet at the center, their foreheads touch. In a kind of bow, the man squats with one leg extended behind like a yoga lizard pose.

The dancers are dressed in velvety black and bronze, men in brocade vests, women in matching skirts with a lacy tiered ruffle at the waist. J.S. Bach’s Concertos for Piano & Orchestra is brisk with cheer. When the dancers lift their arms squarely flexed at the elbow it looks like they’re toting chairs. When lifted by their partners, the women have flexed knees and ankles like figures featured in Egyptian art. Right angles, paralleled arms, this work is interested in symmetry, the dancers often mirroring each other.

The jumps are like springs—the dancer pops up vertically and splits the legs evenly, with a little extra kick at the crest. In one section four men square off with John Harnage at the center executing a series of sharp contained turns. He then lifts the other men one by one as if greeting his children. They then each take a turn lifting him. The pace slows for Kristin Draucker’s solo—she runs with her hands out to feel the air like a mime establishing an invisible wall. A duet with Devon Louis and Jessica Ferretti opens like a rose at the center of the work.

Paul Taylor Dance Company in “3 Epitaphs” by Paul Taylor. Photograph by Steven Taylor

“3 Epitaphs” follows with five dancers clad in costumes by Robert Rauschenberg to resemble mice. They prance on tip toe in dim lighting in a comical hunched over posture swinging their arms like apes. The music is brass horns—early New Orleans Jazz. I can hear the dum, dum, dum of a marching dirge. The piece is pure fun. At one point, the creatures twirl their forearms, one scratches at his thigh. At the end, the tallest is paired with the tiniest as they play their prank, silhouetted against the back scrim.

After intermission, “Tablet” features design by artist Ellsworth Kelly, who spent most his life living in the local area. We get a chance to see more of Louis and Draucker in this geometrical duet. They wear loud bodysuits that show every contraction and flex—she’s in bright gold with a bloom of orange around the torso; he’s in turquoise. She pours herself into a balance as if molten lava, while he arches into a jump. They form a giant X, with Louis carrying Draucker upside down, shuffling sideways across the stage. When he pikes onto all fours, she sits on his derriere.

Paul Taylor Dance Company in “Vespers” by Ulysses Dove. Photograph by Paul Taylor

The evening closes with the hypnotic drama of “Vespers,” choreographed by Ulysses Dove. Since Taylor passed in 2018 the company has been widening its repertory, and yet to end a program with a non-Taylor work seems an unusual choice. Dove, a principal with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater who died in 1996, made “Vespers” for Dayton Contemporary Dance in 1986. The Taylor company first performed it in 2023.

“Vespers” is the crowd pleaser of the evening. Jada Pearman ushers us into a community of women as they gather for the titular evening prayer. The set is simple: stark chairs lined up in a row along one side; on the other side, chairs dispersed. The women cross back and forth, at once keening while perched in a line, then falling to the floor in a kind of supplication. They run with arms carved toward the back, wrists flexed, reminding me of a flock of birds. When they jump, they raise their knees and cut their arms like knives through the air. The dancers move wicked fast. The energy rises to a religious frenzy with the suggestion of self-flagellation.

Though we can feel it coming, the ending is stark and definitive. The drumming pulse drives the energy to a peak and then suddenly stops as the women all rise and the stage goes dark. We file out of the pavilion, a slight rim of light lingering over the Catskills, full moon rising opposite.

Karen Hildebrand

Karen Hildebrand is former editorial director for Dance Magazine and served as editor in chief for Dance Teacher for a decade. An advocate for dance education, she was honored with the Dance Teacher Award in 2020. She follows in the tradition of dance writers who are also poets (Edwin Denby, Jack Anderson), with poetry published in many literary journals and in her book, Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Originally from Colorado, she lives in Brooklyn.

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