The Paul Taylor Dance Company closes its run at Lincoln Center this weekend.
On the nights I’ve been to see them at the Koch theater, the orchestra looked very full but it didn’t seem as though everyone knew that there was a Promenade one level above—So the Promenade looked on the empty and dismal side.
Perhaps the spectators were City Center frequenters who hadn’t been here before. Or perhaps entirely new audiences attracted by the great discount offers? But they needed to be encouraged to sojourn freely.
In 1969’s Private Domain Taylor and designer Alex Katz make the audience do some real work by obstructing sight lines via a set formed by tall vertical piers. The positions for obstruction are endless, different according to where you are sitting. And since what’s going on behind the fourth wall is saturnalish, you get to reconsider spectating as a form of intrusion.
Premiered in 1969, Private Domain was on view during my first Taylor season, fall 1981 at BAM. It continues to make for an admirable exercise in perception and self-reflection.
It’s done, however, for the duration of this run, but this weekend’s Taylor fare is jam-packed and makes it clear that he’s always got a few more tricks up his sleeve.
Watching last year’s Perpetual Dawn, which will be performed one more time this weekend, I started thinking about how many changes on simple walks he can muster, and how graphically they register juxtaposed to other, more kinetic and flowing progresses through space.
Needless to say, the company has been dancing superbly!