Tag: Michael Trusnovec

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Paul Taylor Gala Performance

I’m super excited about the start of the Paul Taylor season. Go see this amazing company at the Lincoln Center until November 17th!!!

Tonight’s gala performance features guest artists, Michael Trusnovec and Misty Copeland, and guest choreography by Kyle Abraham.

Kyle Abraham’s “Only the Lonely” started out with various humorous scenes. Michael Trusnovec danced to George Balanchine’s “Episodes”. But my favorite of the night goes to Paul Taylor’s own “Black Tuesday” where Misty Copeland joined the company members for a collection of tales and memories from the Great Depression. I just love how Paul Taylor tells powerful and impactful human stories through movements.

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Paul Taylor Dance at OSL Bach Festival

Throwback to the Paul Taylor Dance Company performing at the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Bach Festival on June 8, 2019.

I was traveling for two weeks, and so could attend only one performance out of three weeks of programming.

The festival marked the start of retirement of a generation of beloved Paul Taylor dancers, including Michael Trusnovec and Laura Halzack, as well as four more expected departures later this year.

Tonight’s show featured Brandenburgs, Rewilding, and Cascade. As usual, the Paul Tayler dancers filled the stage with artistry and energy. If anything, the stage at the Manhattan School of Music seemed barely large enough for the exuberance of Paul Taylor choreographies.

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Roses

A fabulous Sunday afternoon with Paul Taylor American Modern Dance and the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Lincoln Center.

I loved “Roses” and enjoyed seeing “Mercuric Tidings” again. The program also featured a new contemporary work, much darker in theme, titled “Half Life.”

Roses is so gooooorgeous! Thanks, Madelyn, for the recommendation. The piece featured six couples playfully dancing with each other, and was filled unique moments that were equally fun to watch as they were (as I imagine in my mind) equally fun to dance.

I love the duet between Madelyn Ho and Michael Novak and the short duet between Kristin Draucker and Michael Apuzzo that followed, especially when the couples leaped through and flipped around each other.

I love how Madelyn and Eran Bugge flew around their respective Michaels.

I also love how Heather McGinley and Eran connected with Sean Mahoney and Michael Trusnovec including (this may sound completely crazy) the brief moments when Heather and Eran created a bubble with their two arms and Sean and Michael popped the bubbles. Such small gestures could say so much when beautifully executed.

Throughout the choreography, the five couples, dressed in grey and black, took turns to dance. As they finally came to a stop, I remembered saying to myself: Oh, this piece is so lovely. Please don’t let it end!!!

Right at that moment, as if on cue, Eran and Michael, dressed in all white, came dashing onto stage and put on a grand finale. Well done. What a way to build up and finish the piece.

Looking forward to tonight’s American Modern Icons program featuring Trisha Brown, Isadora Duncan, and Paul Taylor’s own “Esplanade”!

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Eventide

Paul Taylor Dance Company: Absolutely Wonderful performance tonight on my first of five (or more!) visits to their season at the Lincoln Center.

Absolute looooovoed “Eventide”!!! The choreography tells the stories of five couples.

I love the emotions and the human experience in the stories. The beautiful bond between Jamie Rae Walker and Sean Mahoney in “Christmas Dance.” The exuberant, affectionate, honeymoon-like “Moto Perpetuo” filled with dynamic movements between Heather McGinley and Michael Novak. The elusive love, the missed connection between Eran Bugge and Robert Kleinendorst. The care for each other, but also the heavy weight in the relationship between Parisa Khobdeh and Michael Trusnovec.

I also love the movements, which included numerous steps from historical and social dancing (e.g., polka mazurka!), elegantly choreographed into the narratives, and beautifully executed on stage.

As a dance photographer, I thought the lines in Eventide were goooorgeous. The lifts, dips, arm and leg extensions, couples coming together, spinning around each other, the facial expressions, the connections, the patterns created by five couples. The choreography is filled with moments after moments that would make a stunning photo.

Closing the night, “Mercuric Tidings” was powerful, energetic, filled with amazing leaps and turns. Its plotless “music visualization” was a huge contrast to Eventide that preceded it.

Opening the night, “Set and Reset” by the Trisha Brown Dance Company was lovely in its opening scene. I loved how fluid the piece felt. The dancers moved freely across the stage, gently connected as they passed each other, spun around each other, and from time to time, effortlessly lifted each other into the air. The choreography became somewhat repetitive in the second half though, and I never quite got the connection between the movements and the four overhead video projections.

Overall though, it was a wonderful program. Can’t wait to go back again tomorrow for the TaylorNext Night!

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Airs

The Paul Taylor Dance Company performed at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival on Friday.

“Airs” is a happy, dynamic, and energetic choreography filled with jumps, lifts, and fluid movements meant to represent the air and water. Paul Taylor paints the stage with his dancers as gusts of wind, eddies in the river, clouds in the air. Everything is smooth and ever changing — like spending a day out in the nature, or like nature itself.

“Airs”
Choreography: Paul Taylor
Dancers: Michael Trusnovec, Robert Kleinendorst, George Smallwood, Michelle Fleet, Eran Bugge, Laura Halzack, Parisa Khobdeh
Photography: Jason Chuang