Sun and Shadows

From Paul Taylor Troupe, Mixed Moods

Visual distractions flourish at Wolf Trap like fungi after a rain. Even on a decent night like Tuesday, when a light breeze made the open-air atmosphere wonderfully comfortable, there were those in the audience who flapped their programs in front of their faces -- and in the peripheral vision of dozens around them -- with restless vigor, those glossy pages aglow and winking. A woman in front of me unsnapped a large white lace-edged fan and sent that sailing in wide arcs, dusting every corner of my view.

Well, it did seem like something of a garden party, with the Paul Taylor Dance Company performing Taylor's exquisite "Equinox" (1983), leaping about in white trousers and halter-top mini-dresses like exuberant innocents just off the cricket pitch. Surely strawberries and cream were waiting for them in the wings. The music was Brahms's first string quintet -- joyous, but not what would ordinarily send a person bouncing around the living room. However, with Taylor's idiosyncratic musicality, the way his steps meet the music only occasionally but match its drift exactly, the Brahms felt like radiant heat, and the four couples soared and luxuriated in it.

Then the mood darkened, and Lisa Viola began a remarkable solo, so engrossing that the onlookers' fan-flapping slowed and finally stopped. This was serious now. The music thickened into a low moan, and Viola's dancing suggested another side to the dancers' merriment. She seemed to go through a melting process, sinking to her knees and corkscrewing one thigh over the other; she arched backward over the stage, flattened. You felt the weight of every part of her; all the buoyancy had evaporated. This was the tipping point, the dividing line implied by the title. The end of innocence, perhaps, or the inevitable cooling of passion. Taylor excels in either theme (as in "Company B" or "Sunset"), but the mood was less distinct here, more mysterious, and because of that it felt familiar. And it got everyone's attention.

The sunniness returned in the third movement, but we didn't feel the same about it.

Taylor's tendency to flip between cheerfulness and contemplation is disarming, and the fact that he does it in so many of his works doesn't lessen the effect. "Diggity" (1978), which opened the program, spent more time in the cheerful range, but it had its own quirky depth. Like "Equinox," it is a work rarely performed anymore; kudos to the company for bringing them both back to the stage.

After all, there are "Diggity's" dogs: artist Alex Katz's whimsical two-dimensional cutouts arrayed on their spotty haunches about the stage as if they owned the place and the dancers were only tolerated as guests. The cast of eight did have to be careful not to knock the dogs down, but the dancing was remarkably large-scale. It also looked forced, at first, with those wide smiles and slicing arms. They seemed as cartoonish as the dogs. Gradually the tone warmed from happy-happy to slightly edgier and more complicated.

This isn't Taylor's strongest work -- images of sexual pursuit felt gratuitous, with no clear point of view. I think he's after something no larger than a play of textures here. Donald York's music had a Broadway-musical sound -- a little bit "Oklahoma!," a little bit "Girl Crazy" -- and in a space dominated by comic-book flatness, the dancing was big, bold and juicy.

There is more to "Esplanade" (1975), which closed this evening of vintage works, and there's less. No set, unremarkable costumes. No cleverness. It's made up of walking, running, standing still and devil-may-care sliding across the floor, all strung together with deceptive naturalness, and it's one of the most uplifting dances you can see. Here, too, Taylor tucks in a dark side, following Bach's lead (the music is his Violin Concerto in E and the Double Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor) and the choreographer's own sensitivities, which shade every joy with the knowledge that it may not last.

But here's the consolation, offered in "Esplanade," as in so many of Taylor's works: In the end, it's simple companionship that can pull us out of the depths.