Dance: Frolic in Motion

Abstraction in art seemed to reach some sort of apogee when Kasimir Malevich painted White on White. But Paul Taylor, an avant-garde dancer, may have topped that ploy by choreographing stillness: he once fashioned a dance called Duet in which a cocktail-party couple stood stock still for four minutes. He has composed dances to the sound of rain, and he has taken a collection of human postures and set them to the chant of the telephone operator — "At the tone the time will be . . ." The whole thing lasted...