Paul Taylor returning to Mahaiwe

GREAT BARRINGTON – Paul Taylor Dance Company will return to the Mahaiwe for its sixth consecutive summer season on Friday and Saturday, May 24 and May 25 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 26 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

“We are proud to be the Berkshire home for America’s national treasure Paul Taylor Dance Company,” said Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Executive Director Beryl Jolly. “Mr. Taylor’s dazzling, thought-provoking and entertaining dances are a perfect kickoff to the summer season.”

The renowned modern dance company will perform the New England premiere of Mr. Taylor’s Perpetual Dawn, which depicts young people experiencing the awakening of love, perhaps for the very first time. The new work is set to sprightly concertos by Baroque composer Johann David Heinichen.

Paul Taylor Dance Company’s Mahaiwe engagement will mark the end of senior female dancer Amy Young’s career with the company. Ms. Young made her debut with the troupe at the Paris Opera House in January 2000.

She has been featured in diverse roles in De Sueños que se Repiten (2008), Beloved Renegade (2008), Brief Encounters (2009) and Three Dubious Memories (2010).

She is leaving so she can start a family with her husband, Taylor company member Robert Kleinendorst, and she plans to remain active in the dance community.

Choreographer Paul Taylor is the last living member of the pantheon that created America’s indigenous art of modern dance. At an age when most artists’ best work is behind them, Mr. Taylor continues to win public and critical acclaim for the vibrancy, relevance and power of his creations.

As he has since his origins as a dance maker in 1954, he offers cogent observations on life’s complexities while tackling some of society’s thorniest issues.

Mr. Taylor has made 138 dances since 1954, many of which have attained iconic status. He has covered a breathtaking range of topics, but recurring themes include life and death; the natural world and man’s place within it; love and sexuality in all gender combinations; and iconic moments in American history.

His poignant looks at soldiers, those who send them into battle and those they leave behind prompted The New York Times to hail him as “among the great war poets” – high praise for an artist in a wordless medium. While some of his dances have been termed “dark” and others “light,” the majority of his works are dualistic, mixing elements of both extremes.

And while his work has largely been iconoclastic, he has also made some of the most purely romantic, most astonishingly athletic and downright funniest dances ever put on stage.

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on May 9, 2013. Filed under Arts and Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry