PAUL TAYLOR @ LINCOLN CENTER - Performance Review 2012.03.20

PAUL TAYLOR @ LINCOLN CENTER

Tues. Mar. 20, 2012

There are days when all that should be, converges.

After a long bout of busy-ness, I finally found myself with a fortuitous evening free, to see Paul Taylor Dance Company perform in their debut at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater, formerly known as the New York State Theater and home to the New York City Ballet, and until this past season, the New York City Opera (whose departure has led to an ongoing bitter dispute between that company's musicians and their management). It has been a very long 15 years since I was first thrilled by the Paul Taylor Company, at City Center, as a wide-eyed freshman violinist-with-dancer-roommate at Juilliard, and I was utterly excited to revisit those vivid memories tonight.

On a budget, as always, I had been alerted to the possibility of affordably attending, courtesy of the Lincoln Center box office "Atrium Discountix" email efforts, at home in the new David Rubinstein Atrium on Broadway and 63rd Street. The Atrium is a beautiful public space, converted from a climbing wall to a classy destination with tables and chairs and wifi-zone and regular concerts and lush vegetation purifying the air and gloriously creeping up the walls. I always enjoy visiting it - but in the end only the expensive tickets were on sale, which still left them somewhat expensive for me, and so I bought my ticket directly from the Koch Box Office, where a $12 student rush ticket transported me to one of the best seats in the house: F4, - sixth row from the front, in the center left of the orchestra section. With even more joy in this serendipity, I began to chat with my very sweet seat neighbour, an about Paul-Taylor-aged gentleman who, as I would learn, had been the company's first manager.

As a musician, one of the things that had drawn me to this performance was the music: a suite of tin-pan-alley ragtime, Poulenc's Gloria, and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos #6 and #3. In particular, I was curious what Taylor would do with the Bach, so familiar to us all.

The dancing and the choreography were, to my appreciator's eye, superb. Though my only claim to any dancing knowledge is watching some ballet growing up, and attending my beloved Juilliard roommate's many performances during her studies and later with Martha Graham company, I can discern just as every audience member call feel when a piece and its dancers can hold thousands of people spell-bound, rapt, entranced and enthralled by the thread of what is unfolding onstage. There is a hush in the theater as thousands of breaths are held, and it is sublime; we are all in the moment. It is what we all strive for as artists, and it was exquisite tonight, particularly in the third piece, the Bach, titled "Brandenburgs", in which the dancers have beautiful solos, and extend themselves, twirling to the fullest, in their forest green. The choreography wove a stunning counterpoint through the concertos, enhancing Bach's lines, and also his capacity to go on and on and on, in some moments bordering on humourous caricature with signature Paul Taylor gestures of fun, but catching itself while still joyous and rejoining the celebration. It was so wonderful, I hope I can return tomorrow, though I fear life may get in the way.

The second piece, Poulenc, titled "Beloved Renegade", takes the titles of its movements from writings of Walt Whitman, and deals with death among us. The choreography as well as the costumes played with the idea of statues, and the motifs of fate, and inevitability wove their way through it, yet alongside the with the happy obliviousness of youth. The piece and performance were again breathtakingly beautiful, and as my seat-neighbour said to me, "Death is portrayed so much more beautifully than it really is". Is that so? But if in death we find the memory of life, perhaps our hearts carry on as art can. The music is gorgeous also, and it was beautifully sung and played. But by whom I do not know, as the programme does not list which recording was used.

Unless you are a member of local 802, perhaps you will think, "Recording?? But isn't the music live?"

Alas, no.

My neighbour and I conversed about this, as a result of my saying to him I had last been to see the company perform 15 years ago, and when he looked a little shocked, then told me he and the company go way back, I thought I'd better explain that my long hiatus is solely that I attend more concerts than dance performances, since I am a musician (and I'll admit to being flattered that he'd thought I was a dancer; which musician wouldn't be!) As the lights were dimming before the 1st piece, he said that he could understand my hiatus if I were a musician, and he'd tell me later why.

All through the first piece, the ragtime "Oh, you kid!", though I enjoyed its boisterous energy, and heard many understanding chuckles in response to its humour, I was bothered by the recorded music. It was out of tune, it seemed to come from just one side of the stage, the sound quality was decidedly tinned, and, by virtue of being a recording, it was thoroughly inflexible. There would be no responding to a dancer's mood tonight, no allowing the audience to clap a little more for an especially well-communicated solo. I felt as though I'd visited a gourmet restaurant, but was eating my fine entrée accompanied by shredded inorganic ice-berg-lettuce and plastic-bottle fat-free ranch dressing. A large part of this event was far removed from being "in the moment". 

The disparity between the two also led me to meditate on the one-way-street of non-communication between the dancers and the "musicians", and how we respond to electronic media in a world filled with technology today - accepting the old recording, a snapshot of the musicians-of-then, as something to communicate with, as we accept the written medium, the electronic translators of the telephone, then VOIP, email, chat - as stand-ins for meeting in person. Which can be very useful, and all, but will never be quite the same thing. I found this atmosphere rather high-school-musical-on-a-budget-esque, though the dancers were doing a wonderful job of pretending the music was alive. (With lesser-quality performers, I'd wonder, can't they tell the difference?)

My neighbour informed me that of course, the dance company would love to have live musicians, of course it's better, the quality can't compare. But, it would increase the budget by nearly a third.

As I am a card-carrying member of local 802, and heard about the protests not to use live musicians, I can sympathize the counter-attitude that, well, funds to hire musicians should be raised. At the same time, I am aware of the strength of the musician's union, and that union wages would result in the musicians being paid more than the dancers, and of the high expense a union orchestra would create. Furthermore, as much as I appreciate the union's quest to achieve fair pay for musicians, there are surely situations in which the pre-decided "fair pay" would genuinely kill the job - as perhaps in this case - and I don't see the sense in killing jobs, particularly during a recession. It would be more helpful to focus on creating jobs. At the risk of jeopardizing the image of my pro-union stance, I would consider it fair pay for musicians to be paid about the same as dancers in dance performances (the dancers work harder for the job, but musicians are responsible for acquiring instruments in addition to education and technique). Furthermore, I for one would find it thrilling to play the repertoire in a chamber-ensemble version, which certainly would be possible with at least the Bach and the ragtime from tonight. (The Poulenc is more expansive and the use of choir in addition to orchestra would make it more difficult, though not impossible, to replicate in a chamber version.) Small ensembles would work well artistically with the small size of Paul Taylor's company, and certainly would sound better than the canned version. As grateful as I am for union-scale orchestral work when it comes, I also much prefer the artistic freedom and excitement of one-on-a-part playing, in which what I do matters as much as what the dancers do. (I am aware of being far from alone in this sentiment.) I'd be willing to shorten my coffee break for the increased artistic freedom and the sense that my work really matters. (Not to mention how thrilling this kind of collaboration can be between musicians and dancers, as many other Juilliard alumni recall from their days there, and now from collaborations with other dance companies, such as Mark Morris, that explore the chamber music genre).
Am I making a sales-pitch here? - Sure, why not?

A flip side to the question of what-kind-of-music to play with dance, which I discussed with my neighbour, is whether music should ever be played without dance ... what should one look at, in a concert? Since music is not really about the musician - how does one let one's imagination wander? I confided that I can sympathize with this question; I have had the associative imagery at, particularly orchestral concerts, of looking into a see-through glass dishwasher, seeing how the gears turn and all. It happens to be a life-long dream, since I saw my first see-through glass dishwasher at the age of six, to own one someday, but that is another story.

In the end, as much as the quality of tonight's music bothered me at the beginning, the superb dancing and the choreography pulled me into its world, enhanced by well-placed lighting design and striking costumes, so I too could stop paying attention to the music's shortcomings, and thoroughly enjoy my evening. As I sensed from the rest of the audience - our standing ovation was sincere.

Now that I'm done writing my review, can I make it there again tonight??