Ballet Basics at Taylor: Every moment counts...

It has long been said that "every moment counts" and I take that to mean that "every moment is different". A photograph is a moment in time, a literal split second. If the exposure were to be a whole second, the subject would be blurry.

2023 studio shot by Fabrice Herrault

I enjoy watching many sports, and during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano/Cortina, there were many instances when tenths and one hundredths of a second were deciding factors. I wonder if those athletes actually feel time in atomic increments, or is it more that they know when they have had the least number or miscalculations that may have slowed their "perfect" run. Surely, their training over the years of their lives have constituted more moments than any human brain could be expected to recount and consider in the time of their given race/routine/game. And then we have to consider how our bodies "feel" different from moment to the other, much less one year to the next!

March 1, 2025 was when I wrote and published the first entry on this blog, and I have been considering whether or not to keep writing and publishing content. I don't have a large readership, and I have not been strategically attempting to build one. However, I have discovered that it is an easy place to make note of what I was thinking at the time of building a post. In the early posts I was concerned about getting noticed, and felt compelled to find images of myself, as few of the other people appearing in pictures/videos have been enlisted directly to be included on my musings. For now, I may write fewer posts, but I will continue to share them on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin, when I do find the time and inclination.

Controversies of scoring systems, in-person attendance versus online viewing, et al aside, artistic figure skating as a discipline did bring my thoughts back to concert dance and my particular role in managing the reconstruction of Paul Taylor's choreography for dance companies, training institutions, and audiences. And for the sake of time, I want to focus on how a single moment (more loosely defined than a fraction of a second) can stand out and "stick" in your mind for most of your life.

The figure skaters I grew up watching on television were John Curry, Torvill and Dean, Robin Cousins, and so many others. However, in 1979, I was living in the UK and got to watch Robin Cousins' free skate in the European Figure Skating Championships. Cousins actually won the silver medal behind Jan Hoffman (East Germany), but there was a specific element in Cousins' routine that caught my attention, and I have never forgotten how beautiful I thought it was, even witnessing it on a televised broadcast. He starts gliding backwards in a spiral on one edge, then seamlessly switched edges while also switching direction to gliding forward in the spiral. I recall seeing it being filmed from an elevated angle, but this clip is what I found on a quick YouTube search.

1979 European Championships - Robin Cousins spiral clip.

I have looked for this small element in other skaters' routines, but Cousins is the only skater I have seen use it in such a fashion, and with such a sense of ease. My point is that this movement only lasts for a couple of seconds, yet Cousins' performance of this singular move has remained with me, while I had forgotten practically all other details about watching the competition.

From both on the stage as a dancer, and in the audience watching, I feel fortunate to have experienced a few similar "moments" that transcended time and events. These are the moments that I hope future dancers and audiences will have a chance to be similarly surprised for themselves. I have heard from dancers and audiences how Taylor's dances have provided such moments for them.

I work with, and manage the contracts for, about a dozen alumni dancers of Paul Taylor Dance Company, all of whom are from the generations that worked for Paul Taylor while he was still alive; many are even amongst the original cast on whom Taylor created the dances needing to be taught / coached / mounted onto the stage for organizations mentioned above. Each of us has a unique perspective on the same work, and we can all bring about trancendent moments by the dancers and productions because of our differences. As a "director" I try to provide as much support material and history on the dances in question for myself and other stagers, to provide integrity for the roles, the steps, and the intent of the dance as a whole. Also, we had the privilege of Taylor himself rehearsing us in multiple revivals of dances from his repertoire throughout the decades. How each of us gets to the "end product" is pretty unique to us as individuals, and it is the feedback from the institutions and the performances that helps determine the relevance and necessity of Taylor's dances for today and for the future.

In 2026 there are multiple productions of Taylor's "Company B" being performed by different companies. The productions have been, or will be staged variously by Patrick Corbin, Constance Dinapoli, Amy Kleinendorst and myself, all around the USA.