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Quick Facts
- NAME: Paul Taylor
- OCCUPATION: Ballet Dancer, Choreographer
- BIRTH DATE: July 29, 1930 (Age: 82)
- EDUCATION: Syracuse University, The Juilliard School
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania
- ZODIAC SIGN: Leo
Best Known For
Paul Taylor is a renowned modern dance choreographer who helms the Paul Taylor Dance Company. His works include "Aureole," "Esplanade" and "Arden Court."
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Paul Taylor - Bad Boy of Modern Dance
An inside look at American dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor who spent decades revolutionizing modern dance. Click "Buy Now" to learn more about Paul Taylors book "Facts and Fancies." Video courtesy of Open Road Media.
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Play NowPaul Taylor. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 04:28, May 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059.
Paul Taylor. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059 [Accessed 19 May 2013].
"Paul Taylor." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 19 2013, 04:28 http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059.
"Paul Taylor," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059 [accessed May 19, 2013].
"Paul Taylor," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059 (accessed May 19, 2013).
Paul Taylor [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059.
Paul Taylor, http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059 (last visited May 19, 2013).
Paul Taylor. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059. Accessed May 19, 2013.
Synopsis
Born on July 29, 1930, in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, Paul Taylor started the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954 and worked with icons like Martha Graham and George Balanchine. Taylor went on to establish a massive repertory with his company and created a distinct, acclaimed mode of choreography in works like "Esplanade" and "Arden Court." He's won many honors and awards, including a 1992 Emmy Award.
Quotes
"I make dances because I believe in the power of contemporary dance, its immediacy, its potency, its universality. I make dances because that’s what I’ve spent many years teaching myself to do and it’s become what I'm best at."
"Stylized lies (novelistic truths) for the stage are what the medium demands. I love tinkering with natural gesture and pedestrian movement to make them read from a distance and be recognizable as a revealing language that we all have in common."
"In my writing, one of the things I try to do is to present questions rather than answers, and I do that in my dances too."
"They called me the naughty boy of modern dance early on. Martha Graham was the one who started that."
"I get my energy, I think, from being afraid to choreograph, being afraid to fail."
Background and Training
Paul Taylor was born on July 29, 1930, in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. He went on to attend Syracuse University through a swimming scholarship and in 1951 took up dance training, which became his all-consuming passion. He henceforth transferred to The Juilliard School in New York City and choreographed works of his own, starting his own dance company in the mid-1950s. The May 30, 1954 presentation of "Jack and the Beanstalk" is credited as the Paul Taylor Dance Company's first work.
Taylor trained under modern dance greats like Martha Graham and José Limón and joined the Graham Dance Company as a soloist in 1955, remaining with the group for several seasons. He also worked with choreographers Merce Cunningham and George Balanchine, who created the solo work "Episodes" specifically for Taylor as a 1959 New York City Ballet guest artist.
A Large Repertory
Over the decades, the Paul Taylor Dance Company has created a repertory that's solidified its status as one of the premier modern dance organizations in the world. Taylor ruffled critics with earlier, convention-defying works like "Seven New Dances: Duet" (1957), which famously utilizes a lack of movement. Taylor's style often relies upon blending everyday, natural gestures with more traditional technique. He has a vivid knack for irreverence and humor as well, as seen with the playful pastoral, "Arden Court" (1981).
Among Taylor's prominent pieces are "Three Epitaphs" (1956), "Aureole" (1962), "Esplanade" (1975), "Airs" (1978) and "Speaking in Tongues" (1988); his dances cover a wide range of topics, such as love, sexual orientation, feminism, war and religion. As of spring 2013, he has created more than 130 works, many of which have been set on dozens of other companies like the Royal Danish Ballet, Paris Opéra Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Taylor also started Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company in 1993, a small group that both performs and handles dance education.
Multitude of Honors
Taylor's company has set up a foundation and school, and the man himself has earned an array of honors and awards, including multiple Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship, Kennedy Center honors and a 1993 National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton.
Taylor released his autobiography Private Domain in 1987. In 2008, he wrote a compelling article for the Wall Street Journal on his motivation for creating dance and in 2013 published the essay-collection, Facts and Fancies.
The dance-maker has impacted TV and film as well. He won a 1992 Emmy Award for the PBS program Speaking in Tongues, and the 1998 Matthew Diamond documentary on the Taylor company, Dancemaker, received an Academy Award nomination.
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