A Plea for Hope and Light

Photo By Paul B. Goode

It was by pure luck I first saw the late Paul Taylor’s “Promethean Fire”. As a volunteer for the company’s 2016 New York City Lincoln Centre season, I was given tickets to a few shows. Having just begun taking my own series of Taylor classes at the Ailey School, I attended these performances with investment and curiosity for this new (to me) style. I enjoyed many of the works presented over the three-week season including “Esplanade”, “Snow White”, “Equinox” and “Orbs”, but “Promethean Fire” has remained in my thoughts long after my first viewing of it. It is with enthusiasm and admiration that I share it with you.

A non-narrative dance work, “Promethean Fire” is presented in keeping with many North American modern dance traditions. The stage production includes modest costumes, androgynous unitards for all sixteen dancers, a minimal all-black set equipped with wings and a CYC, and simple lighting which tones remain neutral but vary in brightness but remain neutral. All of which embolden Taylor’s well-established vocabulary of movements “his characteristic contractions and spiral ‘C’ and ‘V’ and ‘wrap arms’ and ‘overhead switches’” (Kane 95). The accompanying music, three keyboard works composed by Bach, converges with and diverges from the choreography and anchor the work with gravitas. The tumultuous and imposing melodies reinforce the somber overtones of the piece and remain a constant vestige of darkness throughout the work. What can be viewed as a stunningly beautiful and athletic work choreographed to Baroque music is, in fact, a multifaceted exploration of the human spirit in the face of adversity. By skillfully manipulating the opposing forces of light and dark, Taylor’s “Promethean Fire” is able to champions hope and light in the face of despair and darkness. Blooming from a single tragic event, this work is a universal plea and reverence to the resilience of the human spirit.  

Paul Taylor Dance Company members in "Promethean Fire" Poto by Paul B. Goode

Premiering in 2002, “Promethean Fire” distinguishes itself from Taylor's artistic oeuvre in subject matter and in composition. Often works of his which are more politically minded surround broad socio-political issues like moral corruption, conformity, and archetypal gender roles as he does in “Speaking in Tongues”, “The Word” and “Cloven Kingdom” respectively. However, “Promethean Fire” was created in response to an immediate event, the catastrophe of 9/11.  With a practiced and deft use of opposition, Taylor uses various manifestations and embodiments of contrast to support this subject matter, as he has done in many works previously. “Taylor is a creature of dualities, from the first, his dances seemed to alternate between light and darkness. No other contemporary choreographer has so successfully laid out the symbiotic dimensions of order and chaos, serenity and desperation, nostalgia and farce, satire and romanticism […] weaving together forces which should be incompatible" (Siegle 319). Having choreographer over 130 works Paul Taylor’s legacy runs the gamut of subject matter and “genre” ranging from serious and formal to sardonic and blasphemous to light and lovely. What separates “Promethean Fire” compositionally is the closeness of these oppositions within the work. Without hesitation, the piece vacillates from vulnerable to proud and from light to dark and back again.  With thoughtful and clever manipulation Taylor’s choreography challenges the balance of counterparts and drives the theme of hope further through his use of juxtaposition both visually and corporeally. 

Throughout this piece and in true Taylor fashion, the dancers weave complex spatial patterns: running, leaping and sliding across the stage. Intermixed with partnered lifts, these energetic sequences have the dancers bounding in meticulous order.  However, this energetic quality quickly turns sour. What was once exuberant and organized turns to aggressive and erratic, the dancers voraciously taking up space.  Taylor exaggerates this contrast even further by removing energy completely. One by one the dancers fall limply on one another, their slack bodies creating a heap on the floor. The image is borderline graphic. Transitioning from controlled to chaotic to lax and back again, the dancers must submit to the will of the choreography. By layering and looping these energetic changes Taylor creates a dynamic landscape with peaks and valleys to portray controversy and resolution both visually and thematically. No moment more poignant than that which preceding and succeeding the last body falling atop the macabre pile, an arm reaching to the sky. This heavenward gesture signifies the individual and collective unwillingness to surrender; it is a resilient image that is the punctum of the piece for me as a viewer. In the way silence feels more overt after the loss of noise, hope is given more power in its ability to overcome the darkness. 

Paul Taylor Dance Company members in "Promethean Fire" photo by Lois Greenfield

Similarly, Taylor uses the contrast of the vertical and horizontal axis to great advantage. On more than one occasion the dancers alternate rising from and returning to the ground as if tethered to the earth. Their bodies demanding the horizontal space. Like clocks winding, the dancers walk circles around themselves while lying on the floor all the while one male dancer stands. Wrapped around his head holding her own knees, a female dancer covers his sightline. The male dancer fumbles and gropes the space in blind desperation. Unsettling to watch, the following sequence offers respite with nimble footwork and virtuosic technique. The dancers’ erect posture is sure and proud. Steps in the vertical plane signify vitality. Using the different planes of motion and space Taylor clearly demonstrates a spectrum of emotions, providing texture and complexity to the movement through contrasting levels.
Taylor exploits contrast cyclically, the resolution of each pairing building on that of the last. Opposition in the body is no exception. The shapes and directions which are angular and stately project outwards. Shoulder’s back and down, arms poised at their sides the dancers confidently stride across the stage. “Arden Court” has been described similarly by Marcia Siegle but with qualifying descriptors such as “goofy” “delightful” and “prim” (Siegle 320). To separate “Promethean Fire’s” movement vocabulary from other works of Taylor, he pairs these open and formal movements with a physicality that is twisted, hollow and beautifully painful. A section is known to the dancers, and to me as a consequence of my Taylor classes, as “the back exercise” is a unison sequence full of rounded arms and contracted torsos. It is almost as if something is consuming the dancer from within. Introducing this internal polarity brings about a visceral and intrinsic conflict without which we could not appreciate the resolution. The addition of tense and gripping sequences significantly impacts the way in which we interpret the brighter moments.  

Robert Kleinendorst and Paul Taylor Dance Company members in "Promethean Fire" Photo by Paul B. Goode

Together and with close proximity, these fluctuations in energy, level, and movement bolster the intensity of the work and heighten the drama of the overall composition. The dancers fearlessly embrace these juxtapositions and present a level of commitment so commendable I could build a shrine. The dancers transition naturally and seamlessly; like chameleons, they not only adapt to their environment but become it, immersing themselves in the effort and experience of each moment. Former Taylor dancer Victoria Uris explains Taylor’s constant use of torso as “being iron from the hips down and willow from the waist up” (quoted in. Kane 95). Having taken many Taylor classes and learned some repertoire as well, I can attest to the extreme amount of dexterity and agency needed to meet the challenges of his polarizing choreography. Working to satisfy the demands of each sequence requires focus and control, a characteristic which all Taylor dancers develop and express abundantly.  Cultivating this deft ability in his company members, Taylor manipulates their skills to gently balance or imbalance opposing movements or patterns throughout the piece.  
Capturing the audience from the moment the curtain rises the dancers execute a simple yet powerful sequence of steps which sets a formal and aristocratic tone. Bach’s richly orchestrated composition lays the foundation for heightened drama and with cultivated aplomb, the dancers’ sell the opening as if it will be the last dance they will ever perform. In keeping with the program note from Shakespeare’s Othello: Promethean fire “that can thy light relume” (PTAMD), Taylor expertly deploys movement, space, energy, and skill to make his message known. A dance work that was birthed from a tragic event becomes a universal plea to the audience. Encouraging us to face the differences and adversities which challenge humankind with resilience and above all else, hope. With no explicit narrative, the dancers rely solely on the movement to portray this idea and it is with conviction and assertion they persuade the audience to believe it is true. 

Paul Taylor Dance Company members in "Promethean Fire"  photo by Paul Lobo

Work Cited

Biography.com Editors. “Paul Taylor.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017, www.biography.com/people/paul-taylor-41059.

Goode, Paul B. “Paul Taylor American Modern Dance Information Website.” Paul Taylor American Modern Dance Information Website, www.ptamdinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2017_PrometheanFire_5707_print-with-label.jpg. 

Good, Paul B. "Critical Dance." Critical Dance, criticaldance.org/paul-taylor-american-modern-dance-three-icons/.

Greenfield, Lois. “Dance in Isreal.” Dance in Isreal, i2.wp.com/www.danceinisrael.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/04/Promethean_Fire_Photo_By_Lois_Greenfield2.jpg?ssl=1.

Kane, Angela. “Through a Glass Darkly: The Many Sides of Paul Taylor's Choreography.” Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, Vol. 2 No. 2, 2003, pp 99-129.  JSTOR, Edinburgh University Press, www-jstor-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/stable/pdf/3594052.pdf.

Lobo, Paul. “The Observer.” The Observer, observer.com/2018/10/2018-fall-for-dance-review/.

PTAMD. “PROMETHEAN FIRE.” PTAMD, www.ptamdinfo.org/repertoire/promethean-fire/.

Siegle, Marcia. “Master of Masks.” JSTOR, The Hudson Reviewer, Inc, Summer 2011, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41300670.