Biography of Paul Taylor

About the Artist

(choreographer, born July 29, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) "If Paul Taylor is not the best choreographer to emerge in any style anywhere in the world in the past quarter of a century, who is?" asked The Times of London. In fact, critics and audiences all over the world agree that Taylor is a giant among modern dance choreographers. He has developed what is very much his own style of dance--a style that celebrates vigor, athleticism and strength, making Taylor, in a very special sense, an American choreographer.

After growing up in Depression-era America in and around Washington, D.C., Taylor studied painting at Syracuse University, but soon switched his attention to dance after partnering a classmate in the school's modern dance club recital. He began his dance training in earnest with scholarships at Juilliard School of Music Dance Department and Connecticut College School of Dance and soon was studying with Martha Graham and Antony Tutor at the Martha Graham School and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School.

Taylor established his own dance company in 1954, when one of his earliest works, Three Epitaphs, focused attention on him as an original dance creator, and even while he was a soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1955 to 1962, continued to present his own works in concerts in both the United States and Europe. In 1959, Paul Taylor took a break from his own and Graham's companies to dance with the New York City Ballet as guest artist in George Balanchine's Episodes.

Paul Taylor has choreographed more than 90 dances for his own company, which, in its long and distinguished 38-year history, has performed in more than 300 cities in the United States and has made 39 overseas tours to 54 different nations. Taylor's masterpieces, which are known for their wit, warmth, musicality, and excitement, are now also in the repertories of the Royal Danish Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, The Houston Ballet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Ballet Rembert, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and many regional American dance companies.

Taylor's works have a universal and long-lasting appeal because, according to London's Sunday Telegraph, "they are about people, about the way they feel, the way they interact, and about their social institutions." His body language always carries an incredible range of motion, emotion, and imagination. Through his choreography, Paul Taylor always comments on the human condition, and most importantly, he always entertains while doing so.

Taylor continues to be a dominant figure in modern dance not only through his new works--his latest, Company B, premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1991 to great acclaim--but also through the prolific work of well-know choreographers who were once young unknowns in his early troupes--Pina Bausch, Laura Dean, and Twyla Tharp.

A Commandeur de l'Ordre des Art et des Lettres since 1990, Taylor is the recipient of more than 40 awards and six honorary Doctor of Fine arts degrees. His 1987 autobiography, Private Domain, was received with wide critical and popular acclaim.