Kennedy Center to Present Paul Taylor Dance Company, 5/25-28

By: Apr. 28, 2016
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presents the Paul Taylor Dance Company under the artistic direction of Paul Taylor, May 25-28, 2016 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Featuring two all-Taylor repertory programs with six masterworks in all, the renowned company will perform the joyous Mercuric Tidings, set to the music of Franz Schubert; Polaris, a work exploring audience perception in which the dancers move within and around a large metallic cube designed by Alex Katz to music by Donald York; Esplanade, inspired by the sight of a girl running to catch a bus, based on pedestrian movement and danced to music by Johann Sebastian Bach; Arden Court, set to a baroque score by William Boyce that showcases the dancers's skill and musicality; Beloved Renegade, a dance tribute inspired by the life and work of 19th-century American writer Walt Whitman depicting his reverence for the body and the soul as one, set to Francis Poulenc's choral "Gloria"; and Promethean Fire, which examines a kaleidoscope of emotional colors in the human condition and is set to three keyboard works by J.S. Bach richly orchestrated by Stokowski.

Over his six decades as a world-renowned choreographer, Paul Taylor has been no stranger to Kennedy Center audiences. One of the seminal artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, he continues to shape the homegrown American art of modern dance that he has been helping define since he became a professional dancer and pioneering choreographer in 1954. His work covers an amazingly wide palette: from the lovely, warmly human to the terrifyingly grotesque, to everything in between. The range of emotions is extraordinary, full of vitality, and often filled with wicked humor. People in cities and towns throughout the world have seen and enjoyed live modern dance performances due largely to the far-reaching tours he pioneered as a virtuoso dancer in the 1950s and to the fact that his company has continued to tour to this day. Sixty-four years after he made his first avant-garde works, he is revered as one of the world's greatest choreographers with a collection of more than 144 dances performed by his own celebrated company and Taylor 2 as well as renowned dance companies around the world. Taylor received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1992.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets start at $39. Tickets can be purchased online, at the Kennedy Center box office or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600 or (800) 444-1324.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Paul Taylor Dance Company

With the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra

Paul Taylor, Artistic Director

Wednesday, May 25* at 7:30 p.m. & Friday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m.:
Mercuric Tidings / Polaris / Esplanade**


Thursday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m. & Saturday, May 28 at 1:30 p.m.:
Arden Court** / Beloved Renegade / Promethean Fire**

*Free Explore the Arts Post-Performance Discussion
Wednesday, May 25

**These works performed to live music by the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.



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