I had set out to write this post at the beginning of August, and here it is, September! Yikes! A lot took place for me in the past month, and I found myself reflecting on what parts of my psyche served me better as a performer than as an administrator. I am who I am, and at the same time, I need to remember to balance the "roles" I play as a member of any given culture or organization. In simple terms my work life vacillates between Arts manager, archivist, dance teacher, rehearsal director, advocate, and (content) writer. This August put me though my paces in all capacities (well I thought about what I wanted to write! LOL). 
Me rehearsing Richmond Ballet in "Company B" by Paul Taylor. Photo: Molly Huey
I wrote about keeping archives alive in an earlier post Paul Taylor's vocabulary which provides a little explanation about that binder I am holding in my hand!
There is an interesting paradox in pursuing a profession of performing for an audience of strangers, you are asked to be vulnerable in the studio and on stage while being invulnerable to the reality that you cannot control how others may perceive you. In everyday life we learn acceptable behaviour, more often than not, from the consequences of what is unacceptable. On stage and in the studio dancers/actors/singers are consistently asked to let the world see their vulnerabilities to create a belief that observer and performer could be/feel the same as "humans". I believe this to be the essence of "theatre" where performers are metaphors of the myriad experiences of observers through their artful work. 
"Speaking in Tongues" & "Black Tuesday"
with Annmaria Mazzini & Maureen Mansfield. Photos: Lois Greenfield
In September 2026, Los Angeles Ballet will have their company premiere of Taylor's "Dilly Dilly" at the Broad Stage Theater in Santa Monica, CA, and Richmond Ballet will have their company premiere of Taylor's "Company B" at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA. You could also see Paul Taylor Dance Company performing Taylor works alongside new works by the likes of Robert Battle and Pam Tanowitz in NY, CT, and MN.
No matter the venue, for audiences, the dancers will be the heart of the performance. The choreography, costumes, production, and lighting provide the framework for them to be larger than life so that every viewer might connect with them. And it is my privilege to be shepherding Paul Taylor's dances and the alumni who stage the works. Having the opportunity to continue re-staging a Taylor dance myself is a welcome opportunity to hone the documentation I have been generating for use by our stagers (see my post Stager/Rehearsal Director/Répétiteur). Most recently, the rehearsal director at Richmond Ballet, Igor Antonov, was assigned to care for "Company B" following my time with them. I was extremely appreciative of his detailed care through which we adjusted oversights and mistakes in my documentation. However, this only served to underline that such documentation is only a memory aid for the "person at the front of the rooom" who is responsible to know how to communicate the roles to the dancers.
I like to paraphrase Paul Taylor where he would say that individual steps are less important than the intent they were designed to convey. Yet Taylor did typically provide us with very specific steps and sequences as he built his choreography. The final sequences may ultimately vary somewhat from one dancer to the next, yet Taylor was always clear about striving for how choreographed movement had a purpose. So artistic decisions have to be made for the dancer learning to perform a role, by the stager. This leads back to the importance of knowledge and documentation that provides both context and possibilities beyond physical movement.
If you check out the Balanchine Foundation interviews on YouTube, I found that a very common tenet heard is that the steps of a dance are only the very beginning of understanding how to perform a role. Dancers must learn to give up their preconceptions of how to execute a movement in service of finding how technique serves intent and performance. In 1983, Paul Taylor created a "pièce d'occasion" for Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins titled, "Musette" to music by Handel. In a NY Times interview, Miss Farrell is quoted, "Paul's movement is fun." And, "I always try to do exactly what the choreographers I work with want me to do. So I refuse to be bothered about whether the movement in a dance is strange or not." 
Taylor's "Musette", Peter Martins & Suzanne Farrell. Photo: Linda Vartoogian
In closing my musings for today, there is a wonderful interview on The Kael Report which is unfortunately behind a pay wall. But here are a few highlights quotes from Michael Novak, the current Artistic Director of Paul Taylor Dance Company, named by Mr. Taylor. I am guessing that anyone that has learned a Taylor dance from me, might have heard similar sentiments.
Michael Novak. Photo: Travis Caperton
"There is a craft and technique to the Taylor style in terms of line, épaulement and how your body reads from the front. There are tricks of illusion that happen. We definitely look at that and coach it."
"Gesture for Paul was more, I think, than just movement. It was how you communicate. It was how you express yourself. How you make a certain shape and the clarity you give something can have meaning. Whether or not Paul told us what it was about—and he usually didn’t—he wanted that space for a gesture to read."
"When you come and see Paul’s art, you’re seeing that he saw the theatre—the proscenium—as a picture frame. Everything you’re seeing inside it is a moving picture. If you like visual art, that may be a way in."
Quotes from Michael Novak's interview with Harold Finley for The Kael Report, August 2026.
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