{"id":1598925,"date":"2025-11-10T13:24:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T18:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1598925"},"modified":"2025-11-10T13:24:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T18:24:52","slug":"fall-2025-paul-taylor-dance-company-program-choreography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/11\/fall-2025-paul-taylor-dance-company-program-choreography\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall at Paul Taylor Dance Company: ADHD, Love and Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Robert Battle’s first work for the company is set to songs by Wycliffe Gordon, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson and Steve Reich. Photo by Noah Aberlin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the first time in its 71-year history, the Paul Taylor Dance Company has two resident choreographers, and both will present world premieres during the company\u2019s Lincoln Center season (November 4-23). While they come from very different worlds\u2014Lauren Lovette is a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet (NYCB), and Robert Battle performed with the athletic, contemporary Parsons Dance before founding his own Battleworks Dance Company and later serving as artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 12 years\u2014they both represent an aspect of Paul Taylor\u2019s (1930-2018) distinct aesthetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it can be underestimated how much Balanchine influenced Paul,\u201d Taylor\u2019s artistic director Michael Novak told Observer. George Balanchine invited Taylor to be a guest artist with NYCB when he was a member of Martha Graham\u2019s company and even created a solo for him in Episodes<\/i> (1959). And while Balanchine made neoclassical ballets and Taylor made modern dances, both choreographers shared a deep reverence for music. Balanchine always listed the composer before the choreographer in his program copy, and Taylor followed suit. \u201cLauren represents that lineage in terms of her craft and musicality,\u201d Novak said, \u201cand breaking down conventions of what a form is expected to produce. Through Balanchine, she understands Paul intuitively.\u201d He was drawn to this aspect of her choreography when he hired her as the company\u2019s first resident choreographer in 2022. \u201cAnd,\u201d he added with a smile, \u201cthere\u2019s a rebellious side to her that has always fascinated me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Battle comes by the Taylor lineage more directly. Though he never danced in the company, his mentors Carolyn Adams and David Parsons were both former Taylor principal dancers. When Battle brought a Taylor work to Ailey, he was able to meet Taylor and talk with him. \u201cPaul liked Robert,\u201d Novak said. \u201cSo there was a relationship there.\u201d Battle, who came in as resident choreographer in 2025, also brings a physicality and sensibility similar to Taylor\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cCombined,\u201d Novak said, \u201cthey are an incredible intersection of Paul\u2019s journey as a choreographer.\u201d Lovette\u2019s and Battle\u2019s new works, which both premiere on November 11, are strikingly different, yet share overlapping themes: looking to the past in order to look inward, self-acceptance and\u2014just like Taylor and Balanchine before them\u2014a reverence for music.<\/p>\n

Lauren Lovette\u2019s stim<\/i><\/h3>\n

Lovette\u2019s stim<\/i>, her seventh work for the company, is set to John Adams\u2019s Fearful Symmetries<\/i> and inspired by her experience with ADHD. \u201cI have pretty intense ADHD,\u201d Lovette told Observer. \u201cI\u2019ve always known that about myself and felt that it was a negative thing, something to be frustrated by. But now I realize, especially after making this piece, that it\u2019s actually a really cool thing. It\u2019s what helps me do what I do.\u201d Lovette made stim<\/i> in only four weeks\u2014the shortest time she\u2019s ever had to create a work\u2014during a period of major personal transition. She moved upstate and gave birth to her daughter in the midst of the process and realized she could thrive under pressure. \u201cI was super focused. Now that I can step back and see it, I love this piece and think it\u2019s not something I could have come to if I were in the other half of my brain, or trying to just line everything up perfectly. It had to come sporadically, in pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

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