Sasha Walz - John Percival

“Airs," "Profiles," "Troilus and Cressida (Reduced)," "Syzygy"
Paul Taylor Dance Company
City Center
New York, NY
March 14, 2007

by Leigh Witchel
copyright ©2007, Leigh Witchel

One joke about Paul Taylor is that he’s the greatest choreographer to use only seven steps. It’s exaggerated, of course, but Taylor does have a restricted palette. How does he achieve variety? That may be the reason for the bipolar programming that’s become his feature; a drastic change in mood helps. Casting also makes a difference. Taylor’s dances to baroque music function as a neutral ground; they need to be offset by personalities. The works can be so placid that if one just performs them, they seem serenely bland; “Aureole,” “Airs,” and “Arden Court” blend together much as they do when listed. On Wednesday night, “Airs” got a smooth, unmemorable performance. It needed contrast, but instead looked like Taylor’s version of a ballet divertissement.

“Profiles,” a brief, astringent work from 1979, provided contrast as well as weird interest. Michael Trusnovec brought his trademark intensity to the dance; we could have used him in “Airs.” “Profiles,” a piece for two couples, is set to trenchant music by Jan Radzynski that built to a cacophony and then subsided. The visual conceit was clear — the ducks-in-a-shooting-gallery opening was as two dimensional as figures on a vase, but who knows what the quizzical, stealthy encounters between the couples meant. It’s “Variations for a Door and a Sigh” meets “Flatland.”

“Troilus and Cressida (Reduced)” is one of those goofball pieces that Taylor makes every now and again. This one has three, count ‘em, three cupids with curly golden wigs. Nominally, it’s based on Shakespeare’s play about the Trojan war; Warner Brothers’ “What’s Opera, Doc?” gives you more sense of Wagner than this does with Shakespeare. Taylor uses Ponchielli’s old chestnut “Dance of the Hours” and sets Lisa Viola loose. Viola has fewer tricks as a dancer than Taylor does as a choreographer, but the one she has — a parody of autism — is still quite funny if you don’t take it seriously. She’s done this character before, memorably in “Offenbach Overtures.” She stole the show from a featured role in that work; here she’s front and center as, of all things, a romantic lead. Rob Kleinendorst is the stalwart but incompetent Troilus. He wears a pair of purple velvet pants designed by Santo Loquasto that keep falling down in what might be a backhanded tribute to Kevin MacKenzie’s ill-fated Romeo on television with Natalia Makarova. With three red-caped Greek invaders skulking about in pursuit, “Troilus” is brief, silly and harmless, but the result wasn’t worth the resources. Disney did better with the music using dancing ostriches and hippos.

It’s a shame that Taylor was forced for cost reasons to give up a live orchestra but for “Syzygy” it’s a sin. First performed in 1987, the score by Donald York was originally played live and conducted by him. It’s performed to a recording now, but not even an orchestral one; it’s synthesized and sounds like a Casiotone score of a Carl Sagan special on the mysteries of the galaxy. The dance, very much of its aerobicized period, is saved by its driving performance. Trusnovec again distinguished himself in a solo; Viola was the center around which the rest of the work revolved.

Photos:
Top, the company in "Airs." Photo by Paul B. Goode.
Bottom, Lisa Viola jumps over Parisa Khabdeh, Julie Tice and Eran Bagge. Photo by Tom Caravaglia.

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