With "Brief Encounters", Paul Taylor Dance comes out of the closet

Sean Mahoney and Francisco Graciano in Paul Taylor's Brief Encounter Photo: Tom Caravaglia

What was once a whispered secret is now on stage for all to see. And enjoy. Paul Taylor's Dance Company has always had the knack of hiring not only accomplished dancers, but some pretty nice eye candy too. Now as they prepare for their fifth appearance May 29 and 30 at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, you will be able to see one of the most important dance pieces he has created in a long a distinguished career.

It is one of two new ballets which will get their Massachusetts premiere this weekend. The first is a fun piece celebrating vaudeville titled Also Playing.

The other is named Brief Encounters, and it is about homo and hetero encounters with love. Here is how Arts Journal blogger Tobi Tobias put it:

"Two trios--two men with a single woman, two women with a sole man--dance simultaneously until one person drops out of each group, leaving a male pair and a female pair.

This initiates the most recent step in Taylor's slow progress toward allowing himself to depict same-sex couples onstage, celebrating the love (and lust) that can now finally speak its name.

Later in the piece, the choreographer throws reticence to the winds and links two men in a series of handsome acrobatic postures, making them look like copulating gods."

The whole article is a fascinating preview of this weekend's featured works.

Julie Tice (left) and Michelle Fleet lend each other a hand in Paul Taylor's Brief Encounter. Photo Tom Caravaglia.

Now here's the rub. While the company will perform twice, the erotic Brief Encounters will only be performed on Saturday night, while the busky Also Playing will be seen at the Sunday matinee.

Silvia Nevjinsky and Michael Trusnovec in Piazzolla Caldera which will be seen at both performances. Photo Paul Goode

Here's the rundown of the programs. On Saturday, May 29 at 8pm, the program features the satiric Public Domain, the aforementioned Brief Encounters, and Taylor's red-hot look at the culture of tango, Piazzolla Caldera. The Sunday, May 30, 3pm family-friendly program includes the blissful Brandenburgs, the comic Vaudeville tribute Also Playing, and Piazzolla Caldera.

The Mahaiwe is located at 14 Castle Street in Great Barrington, Mass. Tickets are $12 to $62, with a 25% discount when purchasing tickets for both Taylor programs. To purchase tickets, visit www.mahaiwe.org or phone the Mahaiwe box office at 413.528.0100.

An All Male Swan Lake for Christmas in the U.K.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is holiday entertainment in London.
Gotta love those Brits, Making Swan Lake a ballet about male swans and offering it as a Christmas present. The Sadler's Wells does just that, and you have to see the preview to believe it. (Plenty more on You Tube!)



This particular preview has an interesting story, too. It is being shown movie trailer style with other clips at London's Peacock Theatre before each evening's live dance performance. That in itself is an innovative way to market the arts, and this clip is being shown along with other coming "live" performances, like Jump and Snowman.

This swan makes a grande Jeté.
Mixing live performances with film promotions may seem radical to some conservative Berkshire promoters, but both the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and the Colonial Theatre should be thinking long and hard about whether people would rather view something exciting like the clip above or if a a rote recitation of coming attractions is just as effective. It's not. I make this suggestion despite my great affection for both Beryl Jolly and David Fleming, the hard working executive directors of the Berkshires two big performance houses. Jacobs Pillow could do the same - they already have video clips as part of their website - and even our resident theatre companies who are making informal videos for their own blogs.

A very different Swan Lake.
Needless to say Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake continues to provoke - as it did on Broadway a couple of years ago - but it will of course sell out, because you don't have to be gay to enjoy something completely new and different. And it brings in a very young audience of the curious, who are not nearly as afraid of the fine arts as we old timers think they are. They just prefer them without all that starch and ritual.

Jason Piper in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake
(Bill Cooper Photo)
Jason Piper says: “I always get the Billy Elliot thing thrown at me, but we couldn’t be more different…I am brown, I’m from the Midlands, my parents are loving and supportive and my dad wasn’t a miner. I can’t quite see the similarity, except that we are both male and we dance. That’s it. Well, except that there is the Bourne Swan Lake…we both did that!! But if it has helped to encourage other boys to dance, then it’s great. If they see Billy Elliot in me, that’s fine, as long as they get out there and dance.”

Jason Piper in rehearsals for Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray
(Mikah Smilie Photo)