Dance: The Terrific Tempo of Paul Taylor

The Paul Taylor Dance Company has never lacked spirit. Far from it. But last week as the 13-member troupe opened its fourth summer season at Lake Placid, N.Y., its mood seemed more buoyant and carefree than ever before. On the stage of the Adirondack resort's Center for Music, Drama and Art, there were the usual sprints, baseball slides and staggers. A woman flew through the air and, miraculously, a man appeared out of nowhere to catch her. Four men in dinner jackets pranced madly around like stallions crashing the Gong Show. Dancers dove to the floor and scrambled up—all in time to the music, all illustrating Choreographer Taylor's kinetic sense of the zany and the zestfully breathtaking.

To the Wall. The joy was real. This was a company that had gone to the wall financially, and had come back not only to tell about it, but to dance better than ever. Last season Taylor announced the disbanding of his company. A big-bankroll tour of South America had just been canceled at the last minute, and Taylor had a $50,000 deficit from the previous Manhattan season to pay off. Dissolution seemed the only course.

Fortunately, Taylor's many admirers did not agree. One of them was John P. Holmes Jr.. president of the National Corporate Fund for Dance. Says Holmes: "The idea of disbanding one of the foremost modern-dance companies was absolutely ludicrous. It could not happen." It did not happen because the National Corporate Fund—created in 1972 to dig money out of the corporate world for U.S. dance companies—went beyond the realm of fund raising. Holmes became the Taylor Company's president and began cutting costs where he could, notably by limiting the company's number of performances in Manhattan, where operating costs are very heavy. That is just fine with Taylor—at least for now. "The businessmen leave me alone artistically," he says. "And besides, I happen to be a skinflint myself."

Until two years ago, Taylor, 46, was his own principal dancer. Before he started his first troupe 21 years ago, he was a soloist with the Martha Graham company. Like George Balanchine, he almost always works with his own dancers, whose speed and athleticism are virtually his signature. Taylor calls his newest dance, Dust, "a subconscious stream of action that just bubbled up." The description applies to all his work. It seems spontaneous, serendipitous, full of abrupt exits and startling entrances. For Taylor, the glory of motion is where you find it: "I look at people in the streets and in the country, and I come to the conclusion that the most beautiful things to see are not in the art galleries. They are all around. You just have to open your eyes."