Dance Critique

1326 Words6 Pages
Hagar Barson David King Dance 10 22 March 2011 Esplanade by Paul Taylor In Paul Taylor’s Esplanade, a group of 8 dancers recreate the scene of a typical day in an outdoor park within a series of five dances that make up the piece. Esplanade was the first dance Taylor choreographed after having given up on dancing in 1974. In 1975, he drew up the inspiration for the creation of this piece from his observations of pedestrian movement, particularly that of a little girl catching the bus to school one early morning. Taylor accompanied the simple movements of walking, running, jumping, and turning with the elaborate sounds of two Bach concertos. Esplanade explores the basic interactions and daily routines of pedestrians with a great use of space and interactive movement that introduces the viewer into a world of passion and simplicity. In the first section of the dance, we meet the 8 original dancers of the performance: Lila York, Linda Kent, Nicholas Gunn, Carolyn Adams, Bettie de Jong, Robert Kahn, Monica Morris, Ruth Andrien, and Elie Chaib. All the women are wearing dresses of different colors such as lavender, orange, pink, brown, and red. The three men are wearing tight skin-colored shirts with long orange and brown pants. The dancers launch the dance with walking up and down the stage in two lines of four and interchanging through each other, followed by a hop every time the direction of their walks and runs is changed. They all hold hands with each other, even a man holding the hand of another man, to symbolize their unity and equality as human beings. The dancers continue running around the large circumference of the stage, repeating the intertwining motions within themselves in lines. An occasional soloist separates his or herself from the group to demonstrate his or her individuality by showing off a unique movement that is not repeated by the other

More about Dance Critique

Open Document