美国国家公共电台 NPR Paul Taylor, Giant Of Modern Dance, Has Died（在线收听）

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

A moment now to remember one of the most prolific and influential figures in the world of modern dance, Paul Taylor. The movements he created onstage were inspired by everyday people doing everyday things. And that includes people doing nothing at all. His approach turned audiences away at first, but he eventually turned them around with dances he created for the company he founded. These were works that were eventually adopted by other dance companies around the world. Paul Taylor died of renal failure yesterday in Manhattan at the age of 88. NPR's Andrew Limbong has this appreciation.

ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: In Paul Taylor's "Esplanade," the dancers are in red, oranges, pinks, and they're constantly moving.

DOUGLAS SONNTAG: They run. They fall. They slip. They slide. They tumble.

LIMBONG: That's Douglas Sonntag, the former director of dance for the National Endowment for the Arts.

SONNTAG: Here's the thing about Paul Taylor's dances. They are very rich. There's a surface that you can look at, and it's shiny and bright. But there's also can be a subtext and a subtext below that that can get very dark. Or it can get very just sort of human in the fact that, you know, people are complicated. And things aren't necessarily straightforward.

LIMBONG: Paul Taylor was born in 1930, just outside of Pittsburgh. He wanted to be a painter. He went to Syracuse University as a swimmer to pay for it. And then, he told NPR in 2004, something changed. He was discouraged about painting and went into the library.

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PAUL TAYLOR: And I picked up a dance magazine, picked up some dance books and then looked at the pictures. And I liked to move. And I thought, well, maybe that's it. I'll just try that (laughter). So I left college and came to New York to take dance classes.

LIMBONG: He went to Juilliard and began a career dancing at the age of 22, relatively old in the world of dance. But once in New York, he embedded himself in the art scene there, collaborating with the likes of artist Robert Rauschenberg and composer John Cage. He formed his own company but stopped dancing in 1974 at the age of 44, after collapsing onstage. But he went on to truly make his mark in the dance world as a choreographer. A work like "Eventide" showed that he was a sharp observer of the details of how people lived, even something as minute as how they walked.

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TAYLOR: I happen to think it's beautiful. If it's structured well and framed, it can be something to watch. If you give a dancer no steps to hide behind, no dance steps, and you just make them walk, they become really revealed. You really can tell what kind of people they are. It's like being naked practically.

LIMBONG: But it was still thrilling. Here's Orion Duckstein, who danced for Paul Taylor, talking to NPR in 2004.

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ORION DUCKSTEIN: Paul will ask for tremendous changes of direction. And he'll ask for these things. And you'll think, well, that's not - well, all right. I'll try.

LIMBONG: Taylor got his dancers to try because of the kind of person he was.

MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV: He has an extraordinary, dry sense of humor, which kind of attracted me personally to him. He was amazing person.

LIMBONG: Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov.

BARYSHNIKOV: I really, truly believe his work will live on for a very, very long time.

LIMBONG: In 2008, Paul Taylor wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal describing why he made dances. It included a lot of the usual reasons for making art - to feel less alone, to offer reprieve from the world - but then he also wrote, quote, "because I want people to know about themselves."

Andrew Limbong, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRISTEZA'S "STUMBLE ON AIR")