This episode, hosted by Jacob's Pillow's Director of Preservation, Norton Owen, celebrates the life and work of modern dance icon Paul Taylor, incorporating excerpts from several different talks recorded at Jacob's Pillow between 1998 and 2004.
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
NORTON OWEN: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I’m Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it’s my pleasure to host this episode celebrating the late great Paul Taylor, looking back on his special way with words – which was every bit as inventive and witty as his dances.
We feel lucky to have hosted three hour-long PillowTalks with Taylor between 1998 and 2004, and it’s been great fun to revisit these events through the videos maintained in the Pillow Archives. Of course, you’re only hearing the audio tracks from these videos here. But diving into these talks again has been very nostalgic for me, because I created one of my first museum exhibits at the National Museum of Dance in the early 1990s in celebration of Paul Taylor’s career, and a sort of mutual admiration society evolved out of that experience. In fact, Paul began our 1998 Talk by making a surprise presentation to me.
PAUL TAYLOR: He collects all the old stuff, the photographs and the clippings, and the. I saw a letter that Martha Graham wrote to Ted Shawn, that’s framed up on the wall, and his domain is over there and on. It's very interesting and it's the Archives. And I think that not enough can be said good about Norton. And yesterday, he was showing me some of these pictures on the wall and I noticed that every time we got to one, he would take his finger and push on the corner to straighten it. Well it looked perfectly straight to me, but Norton is a very particular guy. And so Norton, I went out and I bought you this as an award...
NORTON OWEN: And he pulled out a pocket-sized level with a bright blue bow wrapped around it. I kept the bow on it for years, and still treasure this very practical gift.
I’m leading off with this story to help explain my personal relationship to Paul Taylor and justify why I’m referring to this legendary choreographer by his first name. The 1998 event happened early in our Audience Engagement Program when we offered a Picnic Series under a tent on the Great Lawn every Wednesday. So here’s Paul explaining how he came to write his autobiography, called Private Domain – one of the best dance books ever.
PAUL TAYLOR: I, it was not my idea, a wonderful editor and man named Robert Gottlieb who was running Knopf Publishing House at the time loved dance and every year he would publish a couple of dance books, not because they would make money, but just as kind of, you know, a social service I suppose. And he called me to his office and said he thought I could write a book. And I said, “well, what about?” And he said, “well, about, you know, you. And about your company and everything.” And, so I said, “well I never wrote anything, how do you, you know, how do you do that?” And he said, “well, it’s easy, you just, you write a page, and then you write another page, and, you know, just keep doing that. And send, send the pages to me as you write them, and I’ll read them, and at the end, a book!” So I thought that sounds good, but, you know, if I have any questions along the way I can just call Bob and he’ll tell me how you, you know, he’ll answer all my questions. I had this mistaken idea that editors taught the writers how to write. And, so one time, I, I would, you know, do a page and another, and then rewrite it and send it and then rewrite it and send the same thing but a different, you know, 12 or 13 rewrites of the same thing. And so two years went by, and I had a deadline, but, you know, to hell with that. And he was very nice, and would occasionally send back a note and say, “keep going, you're doing fine, keep going.” And then one time I thought, you know, I wonder how important rhythm is in writing. Because, you know, rhythm’s sort of my thing. And so I wrote, and I said, I called him and I said, “Bob, how important is rhythm?” And he, and Bob said, “we don’t do rhythm.”
NORTON OWEN: Paul was characteristically modest about his writing, but he went on to read one of my favorite passages in the whole book, describing the first time he met Martha Graham.
PAUL TAYLOR: This is in New London, where I’ve gotten a work scholarship, work-student scholarship, and she’s come to give a talk. Oh, ok, I’ll back up a little bit before she enters. By the end of the first week I can hardly move, my body, or instrument as everybody's been saying, has become wall to wall deceleration. The excitement over being able to start training has made sleep brief and fitful and dragging myself across studio floors a major effort. My feet as yet uncalloused have formed huge blisters. I have bruises and floor burns, and even more annoying I'm having to take classes in blue jeans since my mail-ordered tights haven’t come. Even so, none of this is discouraging because while watching a class the mighty Martha has pointed at me and said I want him. Later on, when a fellow student tells me about it, he says that she looked just like Uncle Sam in the recruiting poster. She's come to New London for a brief visit and I first catch sight of her as she crosses the huge lawn in the center of the campus. A small dot in the distance, she's dressed in red and is carrying her own lighting equipment, a red parasol that filters the bright day casting down a flattering shade of pink. I change direction to get a better look. Closer up what had seemed like a smooth, regal glide turns out to be a sort of lurching swagger, her face features a Crimson mouth, artfully enlarged and she's wearing sunglasses. Behind them, the eyes, the eyes. The eyes are dark and deep lidded. And there's something very wise and undomesticated in them, like the eyes of an Oracle or an orangutan. That is, they look as if they've seen everything that's to be seen in this world, maybe even more. They give the impression of being placid yet at the same time seem to be spinning around like pinwheels. After the mouth and the eyes there’s this more or less unimportant nose, and as seen from up close her grooming is telling me that everything possible has been done to prevent nature from taking its course. Just as our paths are about to cross she stops, dips her chin down, and looks up at me. I've never heard Martha Graham described as cute. Nevertheless, that's how she looks as she waits for me to say something. I become confused. Other than throwing myself at her feet, what would be acceptable? Forgetting to disguise my Southern accent I say that all us students sure are swift thrilled that she's finally come. Theatrically speaking, her two day late entrance has been an effective build up. Lowering her huge lashes she whispers that being there is, for her, like atoning for all past sins. Immediately I'm dying to know exactly what all our past sins have been, but it seems best not to ask. There have been rumors that she isn't above laying out a student or two and that she once kicked Antony Tudor in the shins for accusing her of choreographic compromise. Apocryphal or not, these kinds of incidents only add spice to her ongoing legend. Facing a legend is a blast but making me jittery. The mouth is uttering miraculous things, something about the “little flags of celebration which flutter all over one's body, deepest tone on the body,” and about the miraculous little bones of the foot and she's seeming practically gaga. Then she's telling me that she believes I can be a very great dancer if my imagination holds. Does she mean that it would take imagination to think of myself as being great, or what? She's also saying that I'm one of only two people whom she's ever said this to. Who's the other? I’ll kill him! Then she produces a slip of fortune cookie size paper and writes down the phone number of her school saying that she wants me to join her company before the year is out and that when I get to New York I should call. Her exit is preceded by an authentic looking oriental bow with flowery wrist gesture thrown in for good measure. I stand transfixed as she diminishes into a floating, into a floating red dot against the wide green lawn. The lurching swagger had been pretty nice and saying body a big improvement over instrument, but what I'd loved best were the orac, were the orangutan eyes.
NORTON OWEN: After this reading, the rest of the hour was organized as a question and answer session, including this illuminating passage about how Paul loved to read, and the similarities between dance and poetry. You’ll also hear a quick and well-timed question from our Resident Scholar, Maura Keefe:
PAUL TAYLOR: And, and I, I like all of them, you know, I like all of them. I like all kinds of books, you know. I love them because you can take your time and reread and, and sort of savor. And then I also since I’ve tried to do a little writing I love to go back and try to figure out how the author did it, how he achieved his effects. You know, it's very interesting to me, and it's not like television, it's, it's, it requires more of the reader. The television you just sort of wash it over you like soup. It doesn't require a goddamn thing. No effort, it’s so dumb, most of it. But a book, you know, a good book, you, you add to it, you make an effort. Like a poem, you have to engage yourself in, in the reading. It's an active role not a passive one like, like, a lot of movies and television seem to think we want these things.
MAURA KEEFE: Do you think that's true for you in dance as well? Do you think…
PAUL TAYLOR: Absolutely, I think of dance as a poem. That you can’t, if it doesn’t require some engagement of the viewer, it's there’s something a little bit too easy, you know.
NORTON OWEN: Wrapping up this talk, he ruminates a bit on his own beginnings, with this explanation of how he gravitated from painting and athletics to dance:
PAUL TAYLOR: I just, I thought I wanted to be a painter and, and I had gone to college to try to learn that. I found I went, I really wasn't going to be a good painter. It just, everything they would teach me, I just thought ugh, I wanted to move. I was restless and and I was an athlete and at the time I was on a scholarship and I loved moving and I thought well this, this is sort of a combination between painting and athletics. And it's, and I don’t know if I really thought of that logically. I just suddenly knew that's what I was going to do, no matter what. And I went, I left college. My poor coach, he'd worked so hard with me and I left just, just when I was supposed to win all the medals and went to New York. And there was, I was very, very fortunate in the things that happened to me.
NORTON OWEN: A little over two years later, Paul agreed to come back to the Pillow for a celebration of his 70th birthday, and he sat down in Blake’s Barn for an interview with the dancer and writer Deborah Jowitt. This was a free-flowing conversation and challenging to excerpt, but I do want to include this discussion of the role that humor plays in dance:
DEBORAH JOWITT: And can you set out to make a funny piece and, and know what’s going to make it funny?
PAUL TAYLOR: Well, it, uh. You know, humor is hard. Probably the hardest.
DEBORAH JOWITT: Yeah, it’s all right. I've...
PAUL TAYLOR: A lot of times what I think is funny, you know, doesn't work and other times what I think is deadly serious we get laughs. And, but I, in dance, it's easier if you’re trying to be funny if you're aware of a quick juxtaposition of movement. Like, you lead the audience to expect one thing and then you cut it off and do something else quickly. So, but just the, just the surprise element you can explain in humor. But I also, I think most really funny things are based on something that's, that's deadly serious, a really serious issue. And somehow the, the comedian or whoever is doing this humor is able to make it funny in spite of that.
DEBORAH JOWITT: Uh-huh.
PAUL TAYLOR: By some twist.
DEBORAH JOWITT: Uh-huh.
PAUL TAYLOR: Of the presentation.
DEBORAH JOWITT: Uh-huh.
PAUL TAYLOR: I have not analyzed humor, and I’ve tried, I know there are all different kinds of humor and I’ve tried several of them. But it's still a real challenge to make a funny, a really truly funny dance. It's very, and you need comedians. And that's a rare, that's probably the rarest of all talents in dancers.
NORTON OWEN: There have been a number of panel discussions at the Pillow about Paul Taylor, including a group of current and former women dancers; and in 2004 we invited three of Taylor’s men to participate in a program we called This is Your Life, Paul Taylor. Paul himself participated along with Dan Wagoner, David Grenke, and Patrick Corbin, and the conversation among them prompted some wonderful reflections, including this about leaving the Martha Graham Company:
PAUL TAYLOR: Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t remember the leave of absence day. I just said I was going to leave, and she said, “I always knew you would.” And it was okay. I think I was one of the very few lucky people who gave notice, and I gave a year’s notice, who she didn’t want to murder. And I think it was because somehow, I thought about it after years passed, she knew that we were similar in some respects. We both had to do things our own way. And she understood that. And she was always encouraging. She came to my concerts and she never criticized me. And that alone was an encouragement.
NORTON OWEN: And here he speaks about the process of creating a dance and how it passes on from dancer to dancer:
PAUL TAYLOR: Oh yeah, well, you know, I, while I was still dancing, I made up most of the steps on myself and then I just taught them to the dancers. But when I stopped dancing, I do the steps directly on the people that were gonna be performing them. And that seemed like a much more direct approach. It also saves time. And I found, and that's what I still do, but at the same time, you can't count on a person's idiosyncratic specialties if you are going to transfer the parts which eventually you may need to do. So it's a balance between using the individual qualities of a dancer, but not going too far. So that the role can be passed on to another dancer.
NORTON OWEN: In an exchange with David Grenke, who danced with the Taylor company in the 1980s and 1990s after first studying at Jacob’s Pillow, Paul said this:
PAUL TAYLOR: I don’t really encourage people to be choreographers, but I don’t discourage them either. And I remember with Dave, I knew before he told me that he wanted to make dances, I just knew it. And so, I, I don't know if you remember Dave, but I would often stop when we were making new pieces. And I'd say Dave, “why are we doing this?”
DAVID GRENKE: Yep.
PAUL TAYLOR: “Why is it this, not that?” Just as a, a kind of, not a lesson, I wasn't teaching him anything. But just to let him know that there are reasons and choice, there are reasons to make things the way you want and choices to make. There are so many choices. This, that, or the other thing, so many ways to go. And so, by asking him that, “why are we doing this?” Yeah. And, I want to brag a little, you don’t mind? There are over 30 dancers that have left my company that have had, that have become choreographers. Some with their own companies like Dan, David, and Patrick probably someday. And others who jog around a lot. And I am so proud of them. All of them.
NORTON OWEN: One highlight of the talk was Paul’s own take on the famous Louis Horst review of a 1957 concert at the 92nd Street Y called “Seven New Dances.” These were perhaps Taylor’s most minimal works, consisting of a lot of stillness and silence, and Horst’s instantly infamous review in Dance Observer had a headline identifying the concert, followed by several inches of blank space.
PAUL TAYLOR: With Louis, what you have to know, Dave, is that I, I was a student of his. He taught a choreography class at Julliard and at, at Connecticut College. And I knew he was interested in me. I knew he thought that I had some kind of talent. So when I saw the blank review, all I could wish for was that it was longer.
NORTON OWEN: And now I want to close with the briefest final statement from Paul about how he viewed his own creativity throughout nearly 65 years of dancemaking:
PAUL TAYLOR: Oh yeah, I’ve always had confidence. Yeah. No, I’ve never doubted my talent. Never.
NORTON OWEN: In reply to this, Scholar-in-Residence Maura Keefe quickly added...
MAURA KEEFE: Neither have we.
NORTON OWEN: And indeed, we have every reason to believe that Paul Taylor’s artistry will still be with us for generations to come.
[Music begins, composed, and performed by Jess Meeker]
NORTON OWEN: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow, we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org, and of course, through live experiences during our festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us again soon - either online or onsite.