A Journey with Paul Taylor

I decided to separate my post this week into two parts, as events have played out where I had more to write than seemed reasonable to put you through as a reader. I started writing once my flight from New York City to New Delhi was airborne and I was feeling torn between starting my adventure in India and staying “home.”

August 29th, 2018, three hours into the fourteen hour flight from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...

Paul Taylor wearing his Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur and me backstage in Paris (2000).

My desire to be “home” at this particular moment in time, is in stark contrast to the elation of having embarked on this “adventure” that has been more than two years in the making since the initial communication that sparked everything. At this particular moment in time, I don’t know if Paul Taylor will still be alive when I land in India. Mr. Taylor had been taken to the hospital a couple days ago, and had been moved into palliative hospice care when I boarded this flight. I did go to see him in the hospital yesterday, and I politely told him that I wanted to visit before I headed off to India for six months. He opened his eyes briefly, and that was all. I didn’t even expect that, but I also figured that it would be the last time that I would see him in person.

For me, Taylor has been boss, creative genius, mentor by example, social friend, and, in recent years, an occasional “charge” when he has needed help that I could provide. So his passing will be a loss of both a professional and a personal “family” member. Added to this sense of personal loss, is the knowledge that I will have to wait six months to share in person the grieving that so many of my close family and friends will go through following his death. 

August 30th, 2018, upon touching down at Indira Ghandi International Airport in New Delhi...

I just turned on my cell phone and received the following text: “Paul died tonight at 9:00 PM”. So things have played out as I imagined. If I think about it carefully, I was probably flying across Eastern Europe and heading over Western Asia at the time of his passing. But the timing seems less important than the subtle transition in my life that took place. I wonder if I will remember this flight as vividly as I remember where I was on Sept 11^th, 2001 when I was preparing to head to lower Manhattan for rehearsals on a day that the whole world would mark in calendars for years to come.

Sunset between cloud layers, flying from New Delhi to Mumbai.

I wrote in an earlier post about the death of people that have had a profound impact on my life as a “transition”. What I have come to realize tonight is that a part of losing a loved one is the shift in how I perceive the world around me. For the past couple of years, I have lived just one building away from Paul Taylor, and when I return to living in New York next year, he will no longer be a neighbor and a part of my social gossip about current events. And I won’t have the chance to proudly share with him the next opportunity or project that knowing and dancing for him has afforded me in life.

Another interesting development that I had not thought about was how the far-reaching “Taylor family” culture would be reflected in my social media and electronic communications. I am by no means in the nexus of gathering and responding to thoughts and reminiscences about Paul Taylor, but messages from friends and co-workers far beyond my Taylor cohorts reminds me how much I have proudly shared my connection to Paul for close to twenty-five years.

Paul once talked about forming his own company to make dances that he wanted to dance as much as the inspiration he drew from the dancers around him. After he stopped dancing in his own works, I believe he continued to make dances driven by the passion and talent he saw in his dancers. And I consider his moniker of “genius” was deserved by virtue of his uncanny “eye” that created so many dances that dancers and audiences return to experience time and again. However, I am going to paraphrase a current dancer in the company, Parisa, to say that maybe Paul’s greatest work was the company he created. I think of Paul Taylor Dance Company as if it were a family tree where the roots are its earliest members (dancers, managers, and supporters) who continue to nourish and stay connected to the youngest branches, leaves, and even a few grafted off-shoots.

Today I find myself on the other side of the world from where Paul based his life and the work that has afforded me the opportunity to be where I am. It is a little overwhelming to realize that I am no longer just a component of his offerings to dance around the world, but now I am a part of his legacy, along with so many others.