Acclaimed as one of America’s foremost dancemakers, Paul Taylor (1930-2018) created a remarkable repertoire of 144 works for his company, many of them recognized as contemporary classics. He performed with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, but focused his energies on his own company for over sixty years. He first came to Jacob’s Pillow as a dancer in Pearl Lang’s company in 1954, and brought a group of his own dancers (including Twyla Tharp) for the first time ten years later. The Paul Taylor Dance Company has since appeared at the Pillow many times, including stellar performers such as David Parsons among the ranks. Taylor’s visual artwork was the subject of a Pillow exhibition in 2000 (when Company B was on the program), and the Pillow commissioned new Taylor dances in 2000 and 2007. In a 2017 Pillow engagement, the program concluded with the classic Esplanade , and his final work, Concertiana, was presented at the Pillow in 2019. His second company, Taylor 2, had its genesis at the Pillow in 1993. The late Christopher Gillis, once groomed as a possible successor to Taylor as company director, was a scholarship student at the Pillow in the 1970s.
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