SMALL BIOGRAPHY
Paul Taylor was born in 1930 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up around the area of Washington D.C. until he moved to New York to attend Syracuse University studying painting and participating in swimming. It was up until his senior year in college that he decided to transfer to Julliard to become a dance major; auditioning in socks because he couldn't decided to be a modern or ballet dancer.His career has included in creating a company in 1954 and dancing until 1974, having created over 134 works.
One of the core contributions of Paul Taylor was his use of music in juxtaposition against the movement. He would use Ragtime, Rock, Tango, classical symphonies, and scores by Debussy and Cage among others. Paul would even use noise of telephone and sound of human laughter to accompany his dances. Among the different types of music he would pursue normal-day gestures to create his movement as well as explore how man fits into nature. He would then touch on heavier topics such: sexuality, rape, incest, religion, war, spirituality, morality, and mortality. This particular range of topics is what distinguished him from his time and modern dance predecessors.
AR & JL
I absolutely love the quote "The one person you don't want to bore is yourself." I think it really clearly defines where Paul Taylor was coming from and still rings very true in most dance. I also found his place in dance history very interesting. His use of music to contrast his dance is very creative. The topics he choose to explore, while they may have been revolutionary at the time, are timeless human experiences that are easily related to. I also thought it was interesting how he kind of became known for trying to work against his roots in Martha Graham.
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