Paul Taylor Dance CompanyWell, I'm not really a dance person -- I'm pretty sure of my opinions on operas or plays, but I feel a bit out of my depth when it comes to dance -- I've probably been to no more than a dozen or so dance performances in my whole life. So I wouldn't take my word for it completely, but I'll tell you what I thought. Number 1, the music situation was dire. I mean, really, really bad. There's a lovely big orchestra pit at City Center -- and it was completely empty throughout. The dancers danced to music piped in over speakers -- with a mediocre sound system and, worse, someone in charge of it who hadn't got a clue what a volume knob was. So you have these dancers dancing to Debussy, some lovely little piece for solo harp or solo clarinet, the sort of beautifully distant music which can transport you so easily -- but it's amplified so loud that you feel the music is assaulting you. Have you ever turned a solo harp piece up really loud on a stereo? Don't. It destroys it. And of course, there was none of the timbre of live music, none of the interplay between conductor and dancers; not even any ability to pause between acts to let the audience applaud something particularly good. Visually, as well, there was a decided lack of imagination: we saw a triple bill, the first piece was on a plain-white set, the second on a plain-black, and the third decided to liven things up a bit by adding a couple of dangling lights to the plain-black set. This sort of thing was adventurous and exciting in the 1950s, but just looks cheap now. Costumes, as well, were nothing to write home about. As for the dance itself, it started out boring and ended wonderful. There's nothing really adventurous about it, the audience is never really challenged, but by the end I can say that it was excellent entertainment. I saw three pieces -- the first one, WWII songs, was dire; the second one, the Debussy, was very good, and the third one, some Italian light-classical piece, was excellent. No one dancer really struck me as being world-class, some of the movements were a bit on the jerky side, and there wasn't much in the way of grandstanding leaps or overhead lifts or feet-above-the-head stuff. But it was solidly performed, and I have to say the audience seemed to love it. I'm very happy I went, and I'm sure that anybody who likes that sort of thing won't be disappointed. But I just feel that at the end of the day, it's more entertainment than art -- I don't think I saw anything new or different, I don't think it was challenging at all, but I do think it's good and popular, which can be a difficult combination to pull off. |