photo: erin baiano
One piece of the esteemed Paul Taylor Dance Company‘s three-work program at the Los Angeles Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion the final weekend of April has our special interest. It’s a world premiere, first of all. That’s a big deal — and an honor for Los Angeles. But it’s the creator about whom we are ever so curious: the Taylor Company’s Resident Choreographer Lauren Lovette, a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet who has crossed to the “other side.” Now choreographing for one of our most valiant companies associated with modern dance, her Dreamachine will be the prodigious Ms. Lovette’s third work for Taylor.
(The founding artistic director for the company, Paul Taylor, passed away in 2018.)
Lovette’s new work is set to the music of Michael Daugherty’s 2014 percussion concerto. The 30-minute score, divided into three movements, is augured as a “journey of humankind’s wonderment with new machines and the inventors who make them.” Drawing inspiration from the music, but not married to literal interpretation, Lovette creates three distinct worlds that highlight both the beauty and ferocity of the Taylor dancers.
“Dreamachine is my playground,” says Lovette. “I imagine and explore a world of its own, one the dancers bring to life. The sense of exploration I experience with this piece is as far as it is wide—sometimes it feels like I’m landing on different planets, sometimes it feels like I’m caught in a time warp and I’m a child again, about to launch my imagination into its own universe.”
photo: whitney browne
Lovette adds: “For many years I’ve thought about invention and what compels someone to dream up a device—a machine?—that can change everything. From the smallest creations to the wildest imaginings, invention makes us a nation of dreamers. That dreamer is now me. And those ideas have come together in Michael Daugherty’s percussion concerto that go from stillness to lushness, from the sparkling night sky to deep underwater. I love what this work does for the dreamer inside of me. And, I hope, for the dreamer inside you.”
The Taylor program also includes Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table, the powerful and classic antiwar ballet in its 90th anniversary, recently restaged on the Taylor dancers with new set design. Created between the last century’s world wars, it is one of the most iconic and celebrated anti-war dances of all time. Taylor’s nostalgic Company B, to music of the Andrew Sisters rounds out the program.
There will be a pre-performance talk before the Sunday matinee, April 30, between Michael Novak, the Artistic Director of Paul Taylor Dance Company and Ms. Lovette at the Chandler’s Stern Grand Hall.
The Taylor showcases kicks off Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center season at a later point in the traditional performance season — but with Paul Taylor, MOMIX, Complexions, and the Dutch National Ballet coming our way, it sure feels like spring.
Paul Taylor Dance Company | Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles Music Center | April 28, 29, 30