REVIEW
Paul Taylor's 'Loss' is audience's gain. Enjoy, while you can.
Rachel Howard, Special to The Chronicle

Thursday, March 29, 2007

The Paul Taylor Dance Company's annual San Francisco Performances engagement is one of the happier harbingers of spring, but this year the troupe's visit to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts arrives with twinges of sadness. For one thing, after this week's three programs close, the Taylor dancers won't come our way until 2009, so see them while you can. For another, it's impossible to watch Taylor's newest work and not be moved to mourning. "Lines of Loss," the centerpiece of Tuesday's opening program, is gut-wrenching, and gorgeous. It leaves a weight in the heart. And it leaves no doubt that, at 76, Taylor is far from coasting.

Taylor's new dance an uneasy mix of grief, danger
By Mary Ellen Hunt
TIMES CORRESPONDENT
The world is an off-kilter, perhaps incomprehensibly violent place in Paul Taylor's restive new work "Lines of Loss," which had its West Coast premiere when San Francisco Performances presented the Paul Taylor Dance Company at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Tuesday night.

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear," author C.S. Lewis once wrote, and the observation rings truer than ever in "Lines of Loss," where grief intermingles with danger, and the choreographer offers no easy answers as to why.

Parting with Paul Taylor is such sweet sorrow
Rachel Howard, Special to The Chronicle

Monday, April 2, 2007

Is it possible to overly appreciate a cultural giant like the Paul Taylor Dance Company, internationally beloved for most of its five decades of existence, ranking alongside Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as one of the world's most universally appealing modern dance ensembles?

The Bay Area's gratitude has been especially keen. For five years in a row, Taylor's troupe has visited here every spring, thanks to a San Francisco Performances arrangement. Last week, though, the annual visits came to an end. The troupe won't be back until 2009. As if to leave us longing all the more, the Taylor dancers looked better than ever Friday and Saturday in Programs B and C at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Taylor made
Veteran dancemaker Paul Taylor triumphs with works new and old
BY RITA FELCIANO

The first of this season's programs beautifully illustrated what Taylor choreographs so brilliantly: humorous pieces, some with bite; wistful celebrations of idealized communities; and fierce, almost apocalyptic rages. These dark pieces provide no relief — Taylor doesn't seem to believe in catharsis.

And from the SF Bay Guardian.

more...
I'm not sure I believe Rita's version of the story of Taylor not coming back for a few years. My understanding was that it was always a limited contract and was always going to need to be renegotiated and there would always be a lull in Taylor presenting in SF.

Taylor troupe delivers sharp, vibrant program
Paul Taylor may be the most ambidextrous of all choreographers. After 50-plus years of dance making, he continues to craft pieces that can just as soon make your heart sing as make darkness visible - or, in turn, have you fairly bust a gut laughing.

Last night’s concert, featuring two Boston premieres and two older Taylor masterpieces ... was no exception.

Not through yet
Paul Taylor at the Shubert...

In an extended program bio, choreographer Paul Taylor brags that he’s violated just about every taboo in American culture over his 50-plus years of creative work and he’s not through yet. This is fortunate. Many artists talk a good game of dissent, but Taylor is one of the few real resisters around these days. His strategy has always been to stitch a lining of barbed wire into a comfy cloak of dancing.