Paul Taylor: Grand Gestures, Grand Space
“We were talking about survival once, and Paul said to me, ‘Survival is about a great deal of luck and a great deal of talent,’ and he didn’t specify which one was more important. This is one of those cases where luck just dropped into our lap. Paul has, throughout his career, had a great deal of talent and a great deal of luck,” Tomlinson says.
BEGINNINGS
That combination of talent and luck – of fate, perhaps – seems to have first struck while Taylor was a sophomore studying painting and swimming at Syracuse University. Taylor was struck by what he calls a “flash of recognition.”
Having no formal experience with dancing, Taylor had a sudden premonition that he was to become a dancer, and not just any dancer, one of the best.
Naturally, this new career path came as a surprise to those around him. But, Taylor took off running – or dancing, as it were – and soon he had immersed himself in classes, rehearsals and performances.
At the American Dance Festival the summer following his revelation, at the time hosted by Connecticut College, Taylor was subject to another flash – this time in the form of a fiery gesture bestowed by the late, modern great, Martha Graham.
“[She] pointed at me and said, ‘I want him,’” Taylor recalls in his autobiography Private Domain. Not long after that, Taylor moved to New York and was soon dancing for the likes of Merce Cunningham, Jerome Robbins, George Balanchine and, of course, Graham.
Photo by Richard Calmes
He would perform as a soloist with her company for six years, and her presence would make a lasting imprint on Taylor. As he wrote in his book, “Hardly a week has gone by since then that I haven’t thought of her.” But, he was ready to make his own mark as a visionary.
A CHOREOGRAHER EMERGES
Though Graham’s influence was powerful, Taylor set out to define his approach with a series of denials. His dances would not be psychological like Grahams’; they would not be built by drawing moves out of a hat or chance games like Cunninghams’ and they would be “free from the cobwebs of time (no ballet).”
Taylor credits a number of great teachers with making him into the artist he is. Graham was one. Others included Margaret Craske and the eminent ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor, both of whom studied with Cecchetti. Though the influence of ballet and of Graham are apparent in Taylor’s style (he does not call it a technique), Taylor’s work emanates something distinctly his own. Though some of the vocabulary changes from dance to dance, some elements remain constant.
Taylor’s movement often relies on the strength of the back. One of the exercises that Taylor developed very early on in the company’s formation is an 8-count series of contractions (a curving of the spine as you contract your stomach muscles), releases (going back to a neutral position of the spine), and spirals (a twisting action of the spine). Taylor dancer Orion Duckstein, who often teaches the style at the company’s school, says, “There are lines in the upper body that are spiraling and twisting and the spiral continues out of your body and beyond your body. The lines are expansive.”
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