PAUL TAYLOR: DREAMS AND FUNNIES

So, Paul Taylor season is currently underway at New York City Center. I’ll be going several times next week and will be writing more then, but last week I saw three dances: Funny Papers, De Suenos (Of Dreams), and De Suenos Que Se Repiten (Of Dreams That Keep Recurring) — the third a continuation of the second. The first is a humorous piece from 1994 based on newspaper comics, with sections entitled I’m Popeye the Sailor Man and I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones. The two Dreams pieces, from 2007, like real dreams, ranged from funny to nonsensical to ominous, then back to funny again and were populated by characters like a faun (above), a “golden girl” / angelic character tiptoeing around with a golden crown / halo atop her head, righting all the wrongs created by a devil, peasant women selling flowers and the women or men who buy them, and some underworld urchins who go to battle. I didn’t find any of these pieces tremendously profound, but they were funny and entertaining and often contained surprises both in movement and character-type — not at all cliched.

Paul Taylor is of course one of the masters of American modern dance, loved by most critics and dance fans. My experience with his work thus far has been limited mainly to American Ballet Theater’s production last season of his Company B, which I loved. So I greatly look forward to seeing more next week. The company performs through March 15th. Go here for more info and tickets.