Veteran choreographer Paul Taylor returns with his company to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Tuesday, March 28. The New York City-based company is celebrating their 52nd anniversary this year, and has a junior company called Taylor 2. Taylor danced for both Martha Graham and George Balanchine, published a best-selling memoir, Private Domain, and was the subject of an award-winning documentary, Dancemaker.
Joe Landini: You were experimenting with postmodernism before the Judson Church Movement, the New York-based group of dance artists in the 1950s who pioneered postmodernism in contemporary dance.
Paul Taylor: Judson swiped some of my stuff, that's what happened. I had done work before they got started, and they were interested in all that naturalistic kind of movement, anti-theatrics. I think I can say I was an influence.
What role do you feel like you play in the culture?
I like to say I'm a reporter, but I'm not really, I'm more like a novelist.
You have a new work that will be performed in San Francisco called "Banquet of Vultures." What was your motivation for creating this work?
A war, but I'd hoped it wouldn't just be about this specific war [Iraq] that we're in right now, that it would hopefully be appropriate in years to come about other wars.
Was the intention to create a political piece?
Yes and no. Like all my work, I really do try to make these dances appropriate to all times. I don't like to spout politics, but sometimes you can't avoid it. So this piece is really about war breeding war.
You also revived an older piece for this program called "From Sea to Shining Sea" (1965), which has been described as patriotic.
That piece was specifically about this country; I suppose it's a satire. It gets laughs. I would say it puts over the kind of patriotism that isn't real, I wouldn't call it a real patriotic piece, although personally I'm proud to be an American.
A lot of people have described your work as either light or dark. How do you react when your work is described that way?
Well, there's nothing I can do about it, I just laugh. Most pieces have shades of grey. There are some that are all bright and cheerful, and there are others that aren't cheerful at all. I would say the majority of work has both shades, somewhere, sometimes more one than the other.
In what ways is the company different now from when you first started?
When I was young, no one had heard of me. I didn't have a reputation to uphold. Also, it was a small company then, just six of us, and I was dancing. Now there are scads of them, there are two companies, and I'm not dancing. I'm just making dances, and that's another big difference, for the better I think.
What kind of work do you go out to see?
Well, I try to go see the work of the all those dancers that have left my company and formed ones of their own, like Twyla Tharpe and David Parsons, but otherwise I don't go out much.
A lot of contemporary dance is autobiographical, as opposed to the earlier generation of modern dance, which was more abstract. Why do you think that is?
Yeah, I don't do that. I don't know, it's hard to say, except it's natural for people to want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about themselves personally rather than putting it in some kind of framework that goes beyond one person. I saw a couple of those things a while ago. I don't want to hear about their bad mother or their wicked family or the misery they've had, it's boring.
What part of your job do you not like?
I have to help raise money. That's not my favorite job. Fortunately, I have people on staff to do most of that for me. Every once in the while, I have to kick in to help.
You're very prolific; you've created over 123 pieces in the span of your career.
I just enjoy making dances. It's what I do. When they let me, I could make more than I do every year. Also, there's another reason, audience need fresh, new works. You can't keep doing the same old ones all the time.
The 1999 documentary about you, Dancemaker, was a fairly unvarnished profile.
We had decided we didn't want it to be completely flattering, so there should be things that weren't like that. There was the business of firing somebody [a dancer], and the producer had second thoughts about that part, that it made me look bad. Well, I didn't care.
Is being a choreographer a hard job?
I don't know, I just sit there and tell people what to do. The dancers are the real workers.
Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre, 700 Howard St., SF, March 28-April 2. Tickets ($27-$49): call (415) 392-2545, or go to www.performances.org. Three programs, see website for descriptions and times. There will be a free evening of Taylor dance films on March 27 at 7 p.m., YBCA, 701 Mission St., reservations recommended.