A story on Paul Taylor's <I>Black Tuesday</I>:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>Depression baby mines era's rich music</B><P>PAUL HORSLEY, Kansas City Star<P>There's a strong possibility that Paul Taylor was conceived on Black Tuesday: He was born on July 29, 1930, nine months to the day after the stock market crash of the previous October. <P>The founder of the Paul Taylor Dance Company said he hadn't pondered this possibility until after he had created his latest hit piece, "Black Tuesday," his evocation of this dark hour of American history.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/printer.pat,fyi/3acca86a.509,.html" TARGET=_blank><B>More</B></A>

Arielle Thomas Newman reviews the Paul Taylor Dance Company for the Kansas City Star:

Review

************************************

I've combined a couple of topics here:

************************************************

Kevin Ng

posted 27 May 2001 09:25 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This week the Paul Taylor Dance Company will tour Beijing (31 May, 1 June) and Shanghai (3 June). The Beijing performances are part of the Beijing Arts Festival. The programme consists of "Piazzolla Caldera", "Dandelion Wine" and "Funny Papers".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


trina

posted 27 May 2001 09:27 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great news!! Kevin, will you be attending and/or reviewing any part of their tour? Also, I believe this is Taylor's first time in China? I know they have been as far afield as India and Russia, but not China?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Kevin Ng

posted 27 May 2001 09:53 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trina, unfortunately I can't travel to Beijing this week to see the company. I only found out about their performances when reading the China Daily newspaper this morning. This is actually the company's second tour to China; the last one was in 1996. Last time I saw the company was when they toured Macau (then still a Portuguese colony) in 1999.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Basheva

posted 30 June 2001 08:06 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the New York Times:
Paul Taylor Dance Company: Bikini Song and Popeye Please China

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEIJING — When Popeye ruled Saturday morning television in the United States and "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" was topping the music charts, the Chinese were in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, reading Little Red Books, condemning bourgeois capitalists, especially American, and raising their voices in revolutionary song.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MORE...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Azlan

posted 01 July 2001 12:03 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ha ha! I love this bit:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So it is not surprising that the audience at the Beijing Exhibition Center was perplexed recently when the Paul Taylor Dance Company bravely took to the stage with "Funny Papers," a work drawing on tunes and images from Alley Oop, Popeye the Sailor Man and, of course, that famous bikini song.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I would give to see the perplexed audience at this performance!

[ 22 January 2003, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


trina

posted 01 July 2001 01:18 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I'm sure they have no clue who the heck "Popeye" is. Amusing! But the "clownish" of it may have translated (culturally) somewhat?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<small>[ 22 January 2003, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

<BR>The company opens its NY season on Tuesday (at City Center).<BR>Terra Teachout writes in the NY Times:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>PAUL TAYLOR likes American flags, especially the ones that have been flying all over New York since Sept. 11. "Aren't they something?" he said cheerfully. "When you used to see a flag on a car, it usually meant a redneck. Now everybody's doing it. It's kind of nice!"<P><BR>Mr. Taylor, who is 71, started putting out more flags long ago — onstage, and with his fingers crossed. In 1965, he choreographed "From Sea to Shining Sea," a "Waiting for Guffman"-like dance pageant gone wrong whose all-American cast included such not-quite-familiar faces as a frazzled, anxious Miss Liberty and a slightly camp Hell's Angel.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/arts/dance/24TEAC.html" TARGET=_blank><B>Click for More</B></A>

Boy, Paul Taylor really gives this interviewer a run for his money!! I love it! He's just as feisty as ever! PS I'm ecstatic that Taylor is reviving "From Sea to Shining Sea". It was the FIRST Taylor piece I ever saw...in Hackensack, NJ (oy!) It was a hoot! It spoofs many charaters from American lore and history, including the Pilgrims, cheerleaders, sports, etc. A real, broadly comedic masterpiece...yeah!

<small>[ 22 January 2003, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

I don't know why this just popped into my head but does anyone recall the name of Paul Taylor's piece (Way back in the day) in which he came out on stage and just stood for the entire concert? The following day the reviewer published a blank column in the NY Times. It would be great to know who the critic was too..if anyone has a good memory..

Misa-san, if I'm not wrong, I think that particular piece was either "Seven New Dances", or "Epic", which Sharon Kinney has performed during Richard Move's Martha@ series - can someone help me confirm this? The reviewer who gave it a blank space in the Dance Observer was Louis Horst.

Arigato-gozaimasu (thank you very much), Malcolm! Hmm..the titles dont ring a bell..well, maybe Epic..<P>But thank you for refreshing my memory RE: Louis Horst!

Alright, I'm now on a school computer (hee hee) and have double checked my source. Epic was the "standing Piece" that I spoke of earlier... although both pieces that Malcolm mentioned above were done in 1957.

<BR>Big Bertha has reproduced, and her offspring are much nicer than their ancestress. In Paul Taylor's 1971 dance of that name, a coin-chomping mechanical dancer at a fairground spews out music that lures an all-American family into debauchery. Taylor's Antique Valentine, which had its New York premiere last night, features 8 mechanical dancers and music by various composers played on music boxes, player-piano and mechanical organ. <P><BR>My friend said he spent the entire dance waiting for something evil to happen, given his memories of Big Bertha. But nothing much happens at all, and certainly nothing evil. The tone is initially light as the group dances, all stuttery gaits and bobbing heads, then pairs off for duets. Heather Berest is charming in the first duet. The main duet, danced by Lisa Viola and Patrick Corbin, involves some slapstick and is a little too broad in its humor for my taste.<P><BR>The piece gets more interesting toward the end as the mechanical dancers run out of power. Some come to a stop while others reel around, bumping into each other. It's a touching moment. Later there's a exhilarating patch in which they drop the machine mannerisms and just dance. The piece seems to end, then the Mendelssohn strikes up and the mechanical dancers form a wedding march, with Viola and Corbin held shoulder-high, their heads jerking backwards with each step the group takes as it heads offstage. <P>

Skelly, maybe you can help me. Hmmm, I'm mystified. The version of "Big Bertha" I saw many years ago was most definetly about domestic violence, or some severe family malfunction. It was about an innocent family which goes to a country fair. An evil sorceress/mechanical doll seems to have cast a wicked spell on them, and then they all kinda "wig out". The version I saw was with Tom Evert, Monica Morris and I can't remember the third dancers' name, with Bettie deJong as the evil mechanical doll. Needless to say, it was very dark and disturbing. The current version seems to have been modified or sanitized...or am I missing something?

<small>[ 22 January 2003, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

trina, I think the dance that skelly was describing is Paul Taylor's new "Antique Valentine" - not "Big Bertha"

Okay, duhhhhhhhh! Thanks Malcolm. I didnt' read it very carefully!

Anna Kisselgoff writes in the NY Times:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The Paul Taylor Dance Company returned to City Center on Tuesday night for a two-week season with two recent pieces, "Black Tuesday" and "Piazzolla Caldera," as well as the 1962 "Aureole," Mr. Taylor's signature work for many decades. "Aureole" will not be repeated during the run: it was featured as a treat at this gala opening. Sandwiched between two knockout performances of dynamic pieces, "Aureole" looked as cool as a mountain stream. Its lyricism and purity clear the air and the mind. <P>"Black Tuesday," Mr. Taylor's deceptively merry musing on recordings of Depression-era songs, was seen earlier this year with American Ballet Theater. It would be easy to say that the Taylor group, performing "Black Tuesday" for the first time in New York, was more at ease than Ballet Theater. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/28/arts/dance/28TUES.html" TARGET=_blank><B>..MORE</B></A><BR>

Anna Kisselgoff writes in the NY Times:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Antique Valentine," Paul Taylor's new dance piece, is delightful and deep. Its world is inhabited by turn-of-the- century music-box figurines, surrogates for ourselves. When a doll-like dancer stiffly offers a posy to his sweetheart, she proves allergic: the human condition summed up in one big sneeze. <P>Hopes are deflated but even mechanical creatures manifest a spirit that tries to rise up repeatedly in this witty little existentialist allegory. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/arts/dance/02VALE.html" TARGET=_blank><B>..MORE</B></A><BR>

Deborah Jowitt writes in the Village Voice:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>When starting a new work, one thing Paul Taylor considers is what his repertory needs. Clearly, he viewed a tart-sweet trifle as the latest lack. Antique Valentine, featured during his company's season at City Center (through Sunday), is set to mostly 19th-century classics rendered on music boxes, mechanical organ, and player piano.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><a href=http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0210/jowitt.php target=_blank>More</a>