Paul Taylor Biography

       Paul Taylor was born June 29, 1930 in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.  He attended Syracuse University in New York in the 1940s.  In college he earned scholarships for his painting and swimming talents.  When he arrived at the University, it was then that he began to study dance.  Two years after beginning his training, contemporaries such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphery, and Jose Limon were intrigued by his technique, presence, and unique approach to movement.  It was then that he was invited to be a dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company.  It was at this point that Taylor’s professional career took wing.  He performed in works such as “Clytemnestra” (1958), “Alcestis” (1960) and “Phaedra” (1962).  He also was chosen to work with others such as Merce Cunningham, Charles Weidman, and George Balanchine.  In 1954, Taylor decided to work independently and began his own dance company in New York, New York where he made his greatest contributions to the modern dance world. 

            In the mid-fifties Taylor’s talents began to emerge.  He became friends and collaborators with the painters Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Taylor shared their desire to bring the vernacular, or conventional aspects of ordinary life into the arts. Using gestures and movements from the street, Taylor’s work reflects the beauty and sadness of society. In a number of his early pieces, Taylor composed dances of pedestrian movements, such as checking a watch or waiting for a bus. Taylor felt that once the movement is seen separated from their context, one can recognize the richness of these everyday movements. For Taylor, a dance is the first step in returning the viewer to the street more aware of the beauty in the simple movements he or she sees every day. 

         From the 1950s to the 1970s he performed some of the most exciting and inventive dances of the time.  He was actually given the title “naughty boy of dance” because of his cutting edge work.  This work included modern music, mocking of public figures, and even incest and rape.  His experimental work was Taylor’s way he broke away from conventionality and was simply a starting-off point for further elaboration of this idea. His later pieces combine this same purity and connection of performance with ballet. Among the best known of these are “Three Epitaphs” (1956), “Orbs” (1966), “The Book of Beasts” (1971), and “Airs” (1978). His “Aureole” (1962) is one of the most highly respected dance works of the time for its grace and technical difficulty. It is Taylor’s combination of the subtlety of ballet with the spontaneity of everyday gesture that has made him such a powerful force in modern dance.  In 1974, Taylor retired his performance body and dedicated to choreography.  It was then that he added to his already created works, making a total of 134 dances.  Among them include Esplanade, Cloven Kingdom, Dust, Airs, Mercuric Tidings, Last Look, Musical Offering, Speaking in Tongues, Company B, Eventide, Black Tuesday, Promethean Fire, and Beloved Renegade.

            For all of his contributions to the dance world, Taylor has been honored through many awards, some of which include the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 1993, the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1995 and was named one of 50 prominent Americans honored in recognition of their outstanding achievement by the Library of Congress’s Office of Scholarly Programs. He is also the recipient of three Guggenheim Fellowships and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from many honorary colleges such as California Institute for the arts, Duke University, and the Julliard School. Awards for lifetime achievement include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, also known as the “genius award,” and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award.  Although no longer dancing, Taylor still is a thriving impact among modern dance where his main focus is on his company and continuing works.