Paul Taylor

Dance On Film ~ Paul Taylor: Creative Domain

Monday, July 14, 2014 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm
  • Library Hall

A film by Kate Geis

Paul Taylor is one of the dance world’s most elusive and respected choreographers.  For 60 years he has given only glimpses into his creative process, but for his 133rd dance, Three Dubious Memories, the door swings open. The documentary, Paul Taylor: Creative Domain, is an in-depth exploration of how Mr. Taylor creates a single work.

We begin with Paul dancing in his youth, describing the nature of dance, ‘you learn to live day to day, hour to hour.’  We leap to Paul present day, now in his 80s, still living his life in the moment, with his mind intently focused on his next dance.  His new work is a Rashomon-inspired exploration of memory, three characters entangled in a relationship, and each believing only in their own dark memory of it.

Through the lens of award-winning cinematographer Tom Hurwitz, we see Paul’s non-verbal communication with his dancers. Below the surface of this dance and the many works that came before, is Paul’s power of acute observation, revealing a side to his choreography that is strangely prophetic. The dominant voice is Paul’s, between the guarded and unguarded moments we see him with new eyes and new understanding.

"The film quickens memories in anyone who has ever danced professionally. 'Yes,' we say to ourselves, 'that’s how it felt, that’s how we coped; remember that kind of sweat?' For the uninitiated, the interplay of labor and inspiration may come as a surprise. A dance gets hammered out, made to fit, and polished to beauty like a shoe made by a master cobbler." -- Dance Beat

Run time: 81 min.

The Dance on Film series is presented by the Bud Werner Memorial Library, Perry-Mansfield and Steamboat Dance Theatre.

The free screening includes an introduction by dance history professor and Perry-Mansfield Executive Director Joan Lazarus.

Joan Lazarus

About the film's commentator
Joan Lazarus served as Executive Director of Oakland Ballet, General Manger of Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center, and Executive Director of WestWave Dance, an annual festival of new choreography presented in San Francisco. Joan has performed with or in the works of Alonzo King, Cliff Keuter, Ellen Bromberg, Victoria Morgan, Krissy Keefer, Frank Shawl, Bill DeYoung, Toni Pimble, Richard Colton and Alan Ptashek. She taught at the University of Oregon, Mills College, San Francisco Ballet, Dance Circle of Boston, The Princeton Ballet, RoCo Dance & Fitness, and Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and co-authored the Dance Curriculum Guide adopted by the San Francisco Unified School District. She received Bay Area National Dance Week’s Contribution to the Field of Dance Award in 2006, and in 2012 she received an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Sustained Achievement. Lazarus was named 2011 Dance MVP by the San Francisco Chronicle. Joan joined the staff at Perry-Mansfield in June 2012.

About Dance On Film

This Dance On Film series is presented by Bud Werner Memorial Library, Perry-Mansfield and Steamboat Dance Theatre. Perry-Mansfield celebrates its 101st anniversary as the oldest continuously operating arts camp in the United States this year. Steamboat Dance Theatre is a community dance organization presented its 42nd annual concert March 20-22, 2014, in addition to year-round dance scholarships and education programs in Yampa Valley schools and throughout the community. This collaborative and educational dance film series features free screenings of the hottest new dance documentaries along with the finest classic dance films from a variety of genres filmed throughout the ages.