Wednesday March 26, 2014 – With America going to pot, Paul Taylor’s A FIELD OF GRASS was a particularly timely opening work on tonight’s programme as the venerable choreographer’s troupe of outstanding dancers neared the end of their three-week season at Lincoln Center. To the gently joyous and sometimes ironic songs of Harry Nilsson, the dancers evoked the joys of getting high.
Robert Kleinendorst’s opening solo has an innocent air, a toke or two getting him there as he savors a summer afternoon. He’s joined by others from the commune, everyone relaxed and ever-so-slightly paranoid. There’s a blissful, light-stepping duet for Robert and the sensational Michelle Fleet, and Aileen Roehl is simply groovy in a featured role. Eran Bugge, Christina Lynch Markham, Sean Mahoney and Francisco Graciano bend, sway and celebrate under the influence; all that’s missing is the obligatory trip to the grocery store.
In a violent mood swing, the second work tonight was Taylor’s 2005 ballet BANQUET OF VULTURES set to Morton Feldman’s eerie Oboe and Orchestra. A quote from 19th-cenutry Scottish poet John Davidson’s ‘War Poem‘ heralds the encompassing darkness of this work: “And blood in torrents pour In vain–Always in vain, For war breeds war again!”
The curtain opens on a shadowy stage, with an ensemble of camouflage-clad dancers writhing in candlelight. The dancers’ moves suggest the hopeless stupor of those long held in tortured captivity; awakened to another day of terrorized despair, they begin to rush about in furtive panic, seeking routes of escape.
Michael Trusnovec, a malevolent power-figure in a dark suit and red tie, emerges from the gloom; with a reptilian slither in his walk and an emphatic stamping of his heels, this sadistic jailer strikes fear in the huddled captives. Seizing upon his prey, Jamie Rae Walker, Michael systematically breaks her down, with a brutal act of rape before he stabs her and drags her body away to be discarded.
The narrative is destined to be endlessly repeated: a new master of war, Robert Kleinendorst, now appears and dances a spastic solo, flinging himself to the floor in paroxyms of rage before he approaches the prisoners, instilling them with visions of a fresh hell.
The communicative powers of Ms. Walker and Mssers. Trusnovec and Kleinendorst were at full sail in this powerful work which evokes the now largely-forgotten bastions of cruelty – Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib – and the unfettered vanity of George W Bush and his war-mongering administration.
I first experienced CLOVEN KINGDOM at Jacob’s Pillow not long after its creation; Paul Taylor’s works were my first exposure to modern dance and CLOVEN KINGDOM struck me an an especial favorite and it remains so to this day, after many viewings.
Meshing music by Arcangelo Corelli, Henry Cowell and Malloy Miller, Paul Taylor develops this visually stunning ballet against a sound collage that combines the elegant formality of the Baroque with sensuous back-beats and jungular vibrations. Treading along the fault lines between the civilized and the savage, the quartet of men in tuxedos – Michael Trusnovec, Michael Apuzzo, Michael Novak and George Smallwood – move with a kind of predatory elegance. The women wear sweeping gowns in attractive hues and later some of them add mirrored heardresses, casting jewel-like refractions of light about the stage and into the theatre. Urgently lyrical swirls, stylized gestures, and witty pairings decorate the evolving choreography for the female ensemble: Michelle Fleet, Eran Bugge, Laura Halzack, Jamie Rae Walker, Aileen Roehl, Heather McGinley, Christina Lynch Markham and Kristi Tornga. In one of those inimitable Taylor touches, Ms. Roehl – in lime green – periodically crosses the stage in a leaping diagonal: a woman with a mission…though we have no idea what impels her quest. Brilliant!
As this was my last Taylor performance of the current season, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the marvelous Taylor dancers – with roses for the newcomers Ms. Markham and Ms. Tornga for their excellent work – and a note of thanks to the Company’s Lisa Labrado, who is always so helpful. And then, of course, there’s the Great Man himself.
Oberon's Glade 