Paul Taylor Dance Company's Next Step

From DM’s conversation with Paul Taylor in the February issue:

 

DM
: Paul, how do you want [the Paul Taylor Dance Company] to look in 25 years? 


PT:
Oh, well, I like it like it is. I don’t know how it could be better. There’ll be different people, of course, but I’ll find them.

 

DM
: Have you verbalized any of that?


PT
: No…well, actually there is a plan drawn up for when I can’t make dances—what will be done then. But the company is to go on.

 

Ah, Mr. Taylor, cagey as usual. Now, however, we know exactly what that plan is: Next year, the Paul Taylor Dance Company will reinvent itself as Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance. At a press conference yesterday, it was officially revealed that the new company will perform both dances by Taylor and other works by modern and contemporary choreographers.

 

Taylor and senior PTDC member Michael Trusnovec. Photos by Jayme Thornton for
Dance Magazine.

 

About $10 million have been raised to fund this expansion (a good chunk of which came from Taylor’s sale of artworks by his late friend and collaborator Robert Rauschenberg). PTAMD—we’ll have to get used to the new acronym—will continue to perform each spring at the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, and might even add a fall season at the venue.

 

Perhaps the most surprising change is that the company, which has battled in the past with the musicians’ union over its use of recorded music, will feature live accompaniment when the choreography calls for it—welcome news for audiences and NYC musicians alike.

 

Here’s to the new Taylor company. We’ll be celebrating by soaking in Taylor’s choreography at the Koch Theater for the next few weeks, during PTDC’s typically rich spring season. Which choreographers do you think might enter the Taylor family fold next year?