All The World's A Stage: Choreographer Paul Taylor Created A Dance Company

He left his major mark on the dance world as a choreographer. Paul Taylor, one of the most prolific and influential choreographers in the world of modern dance, died Wednesday, Aug. 29. The cause was renal failure, the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation confirmed. He was 88.
The movements Taylor created on stage were inspired by everyday people doing everyday things, including doing nothing at all. It was an approach that at first turned people away — but he eventually turned them around.
(Most of this post - and the opening image - are taken from National Public Radio in this report from this past week) https://www.npr.org/2018/08/30 )
Paul Taylor was born in 1930 just outside of Pittsburgh. He wanted to be a painter, and attended Syracuse University on a swimming scholarship to pay for it.
And then, he told NPR in 2004, something changed. He was discouraged about painting and went into the library."And I picked up a dance magazine, picked up some dance books and then looked at the pictures," Taylor said. "And I like to move and I thought, 'Well, maybe that's it. I'll just try that.' So I left college and came to New York to take dance classes."

He went to the Julliard School and began a career dancing at the age of 22 — relatively old in the world of dance. Once in New York he embedded himself in the contemporary arts scene, collaborating with the likes of artist Robert Rauschenberg and composer John Cage.

He formed his own company but stopped dancing in 1974, at the age of 44, after collapsing onstage. In any event, he would truly leave his mark in the dance world as a choreographer.

A work like Eventide showed that he was a sharp observer of the details of how people lived, even something as minute as how they walked.

"I happen to think it's beautiful," Taylor said to NPR. "If it's structured well and framed, it can be something to watch. If you give a dancer no steps to hide behind, no dance steps, and you just make them walk, they become really revealed. You really can tell what kind of people they are. It's like being naked, practically."
But it was still thrilling, says Orion Duckstein*, formerly an 11-year veteran of the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
"Paul will ask for tremendous changes of direction," Duckstein said to NPR in 2004. "And he'll ask for these things, and you'll think, `Well, that's not possible --well, all right, I'll try.'"
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* Blogger Note: Orion Duckstein is shown in the opening image center background. He was raised in Mansfield, Connecticut, the son of a life-long high school friend of your MesaZona blogger. He graduated from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, and then moved to New York City joining The Paul Taylor Dance Company performing all over the world. He's married to Heather Brest, likewise a former star performer. They have two sons. Orion is now a tenured professor teahing dance at Adelphi University on Long Island.  
Taylor got his dancers to try because of the kind of person he was.
"His extraordinary dry sense of humor, which kind of attract me personally to him," says dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. "He was [an] amazing person. ... I really truly believe his work will live on for a very, very long time."
In 2008, Paul Taylor wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal describing why he made dances. It included a lot of the usual reasons for making art — to feel less alone, to offer reprieve from the world. But then he also wrote: "because I want people to know about themselves . . .
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Paul Taylor, Giant Of Modern Dance, Has Died
Andrew Limbong  

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August 30, 20185:22 PM ET

Heard on All Things Considered