Taylor's tumbling and tossing ta-da

Jessica Ferretti and ensemble in Paul Taylor's "Piazzolla Caldera," which was performed at PS21 Chatham on Friday night. (Photo by Ron Thiele)

Paul Taylor Dance Company is a national treasure. And for the past few years, PS21 Chatham has been lucky enough to share in its riches, creating a bond between audiences and dancers that has galvanized some of the company’s most inspired shows.
 
Friday night’s was no exception. Obviously, the dancers are at home on this stage in a dormant apple orchard in Columbia County. The mutual affection stimulates a go-for-it attitude and everyone on both sides of the theater benefits.
 
The evening opened with Taylor’s rollicking “Mercuric Tidings,” where every move at the top of Franz Schubert’s symphony excerpts felt like a “ta-da.” The dancers streamed across the stage in a wave, first tightly with their arms and legs shooting and rolling over heads as they swiftly angled forward. Then they tilted apart, galloping in circles, strutting and leaping in lines across the stage as their arms wheel them around in a tumbling, tossing gambol.
 
Like so many of Taylor’s pieces, there were tidbits to savor. The tiny hops to the side, the straight up sautes and the clasp of the air as if the dancers are embracing a beach ball.
 
In the end, they reassembled into a tight tableau, one body exhausted but satisfied with this ambrosia feast.
 
“Mercuric Tidings” also underscored Taylor’s musical sensibility. He, like ballet’s George Balanchine, rode the music, helping the audience see and thus appreciate it. And his musical sensibilities extended to all genres – from classical to pop and everything in between.
 
His “Piazzolla Caldera”  was another fine example of his ability to not only ride but savor music. Set to Astor Piazzolla’s accordion laced tango music, one could feel the sexual heat. It radiated off the dancers in the opening sequence – faced on opposite ends of the stage, the men suggestively thrusted out their hips while the women whirled their legs around or circled their heeled feet on the floor as if drawing a imaginary line they were daring them to cross.
 
Out in front of the men was Lee Duveneck, a commanding dancer who dared the viewer not to watch. Also compelling was Alex Clayton and John Harnage in the drunken duet of dominance; as was Jessica Ferretti who danced the lone, rejected woman who flopped to the floor at the end.
 
The evening was completed with Taylor’s ode to the hippies in “A Field of Grass,” at first happily rolling around in a marijuana haze that turns to a shuttering addiction. Of course, like all Taylor pieces, there was a blissful, skipping finale with Harry Nilsson’s “The Puppy Song.”
 
The summer has just begun, however, and there is much more dance to come at PS21 Chatham including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival hit "Cirk La Putyka" and Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni’s “Save the Last Dance For Me.