July 29: Today in Dance

Born Today: Paul Taylor

Modern dance choreographer Paul Taylor (1930–2018) performed with Martha Graham (1894–1991) and founded his own company in 1954. His work exists in an eclectic category all his own, as his 50+ year artistic range is enormous. Taylor began as an avant garde bad boy, presenting Seven New Dances (1957), a suite of pieces containing almost no dance. In the humorously creepy 3 Epitaphs (1956), you can see his irreverent wit in a piece that looks extremely fun to perform. However, his work changed direction in 1962, as it would many times, with the ethereal piece Aureole (1962). In 2015, Taylor renamed his company Paul Taylor American Modern Dance and began presenting works by modern dance pioneers and commissioned new works by contemporary choreographers, thus preserving the legacy and protecting the future of modern dance.

Also Born Today: Remarkably versatile kabuki actor Kanzaburo Nakamura XVII (1909–1988) played over 800 different roles in his career — all ages both male and female. Light-skinned Marion Cuyjet (1920–1996) studied with Essie Mae Dorsey and was able to pass as whitte to study at the Philadelphia Ballet Academy at a time when black dancers were not allowed to study ballet publicly. After she was discovered, she opened up a school of her own, training generations of black dancers. Choreographer Akram Khan (1974-) founded his company in 2000…