Paul Taylor Dance Company

Music by Arvo Pärt
In a comment on the impermanence of many relationships in the 21st century, the dance looks at individuals who fail to create meaningful, lasting connections with other people. “Taylor reveals the meat of the human condition, and he likes it raw.  The dance suggests a world in which loneliness is not exactly the same as being alone.  As in many of Mr. Taylor's works, the dividing line is smudged." – Gia Kourlas, New York Times

Music by Francis Poulenc
A depiction of the experiences of an artist – “poet of the body and the soul” – described in Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” Scenes from his life include tending to the afflicted, just as the poet nursed dying soldiers during the Civil War. His mortality foretold, the poet is embraced by a benevolent feminine spirit with “the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.” "The best new choreography in 2008. Deeply moving... a work of philosophic as well as dramatic power. Mr. Taylor ranks among the great war poets. One of the great achievements of his long career and one of the most eloquently textured feats of his singular imagination." -- Alastair Macaulay, New York Times

Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, orchestrated by Stokowski
The kaleidoscope of emotional colors in the human condition is displayed in a work in which dancers weave in and out of intricate patterns that mirror the way varied emotions weave themselves through life. A cataclysmic event leads to recovery and the triumph of the human spirit. “It has grandeur, majesty and spiritual dimension. It is also quite simply one of the best dance works choreographed by Paul Taylor. Just the sheer architectonics of the complex and contrapuntal patterns overwhelm the eye. [The dancers] are building blocks in the human cathedral that Mr. Taylor constructs uncannily and perfectly with such powerful emotional resonance.“ – Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times

Ragtime medleys of Tin Pan Alley, operatic and patriotic tunes
The title is a term of admiration from the early 1900s that sets the tone for a Coney Island-style revue of vaudeville numbers and a melodrama featuring a damsel in distress. The Ku Klux Klan is parodied, and a not-so-young eccentric dancer performs a grotesque hootchy-kootch for perhaps the millionth time. “An exuberant romp… Sheer and wonderful entertainment. But Taylor reminds us that the era of the Keystone Kops was also the heyday of the KKK.” – Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times

Songs sung by The Andrews Sisters
The turbulent World War II era is recalled through hit songs that depict an America surging with high spirits, but the dance reminds us that legions of soldiers never returned from battle. One young woman pines for a sweetheart who, thousands of miles away, embraces a fellow serviceman. “Evokes the exuberant rhythms of the '40's as well as the grim and persistent shadow of war. But even more vividly, it honors Taylor's magnificent dancers. Some of the most glorious dancing to be seen anywhere.” – Laura Shapiro, Newsweek

Music specially composed by Donald York
The title refers to the nearly straight line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system. Accompanied by an urgent score, dancers hurtle across the stage like so many bodies in space – orbiting, eclipsing and colliding into each other. “Syzygy comments on life… [It] emerges as a major piece of movement invention – a ferocious outpouring of energy, full of jiggly, gyrating body shapes new to Mr. Taylor's work.” – Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times

Music by Franz Schubert
A whirlwind of movement invention, propelled by Franz Schubert’s youthful first and second symphonies. “Danced for the sheer joy of it, the controlled expenditure of animal energy, poetry expressed as a time and motion study, young people cavorting with the kinetic propensities of young godlets.” – Clive Barnes, New York Post

Music from the St. Louis Melody Museum collection of band machines
An American allegory in which a happily married couple and their daughter visit an amusement park where Big Bertha, a mechanical doll, corrupts them.  "A hair-raising, though provoking, brilliant work that starts out as hilarious comedy and ends as tragedy...It moves with inescapable power from innocent pleasures to incestuous rape" - Dorothy Samachson, Chicago Daily News

Music by Johann Sebastian Bach
The first dance for which Taylor paired his avant garde movement with music composed two centuries earlier: Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites. Dancers resembling exotic tropical birds in their in multi-hued unitards alternate between restrained movements and exuberant outbursts: pedestrians at the intersection of Tranquil Street and Turmoil Boulevard. “Taylor meets Bach on Bach’s terrain, capturing the music’s noble muscularity to perfection. What’s fascinating about Junction from a historical perspective is that it shows how quickly and completely Taylor found his voice. Junction is a manifesto.” – Nancy Goldner, Philadelphia Inquirer