Last Friday Mercyhurst had the great opportunity to see Paul Taylor Dance Company perform at the D'angelo Performing Arts Center. We have been very lucky to see many world renowned companies perform here at Mercyhurst and Paul Taylor is one of them.
Paul Taylor Dance Company is a medium sized modern company based in New York City. Their repertory is centered on works choreographed by Paul Taylor. The company has performed in over 540 cities and 64 countries, representing themselves as one of the top modern companies in the world.
In their performance here on Friday they performed three works. The first piece was a fun one set to popular music from the ragtime era. It was broken up into different "episodes" with different relationships between the dancers on stage. There was plenty of comedy in the piece and lots of energy. The next piece performed was a much calmer and almost ethereal work. It reminded me a bit of liturgical dance with the movement style and music. The piece they closed the performance with, was by far my favorite. The dancers were dressed in fantastic green costumes and the music was Brandenburg concertos #6 and #3. The movement showed off the dancers’ technicality and quick speed along with energy and big movement.
In the dance department we had the amazing opportunity to take a master class from one of the company members. She taught a great class focusing on the Taylor style and at the end of class she taught a movement phrase from the piece "Brandenburgs". It made the performance that much more engaging when we could see the part of choreography we learned, danced by the company onstage!
Taking class and seeing Paul Taylor Dance Company perform was a great way to end last week. Looking forward to a short week this week before fall break!
"I want to lift the audience to the miraculous in human nature. After all, we shouldn't be here, with all the odds against us in nature. It's kind of unusual and wonderful!" -Paul Taylor
No comments:
Post a Comment