Paul Taylor

On Wednesday, April 17, 1996, I went to a Paul Taylor Dance Company performance at Ripon High School. I had heard that they were one of the best companies of dancers in the United States of America, which is primarily why I went in the first place. I haven't, in the past, gone to many dance performances, but I got a good reccomendation for this one, as well as free tickets (which always helps). At any rate, I certainly wasn't expecting what I got.

I was expecting the type of dancing that choirs do as they're singing. I don't mind this type of dance, but it's not what I do in most of my free time. Rather than this type of dance, however, I found it was a ballet. To tell the truth, I've never really been to a ballet, so I have nothing to judge them by, but I found this group to be fantastic.

The dances performed had a variety of drastically different styles. One dance was composed of leaps and bounds, while another was silky smooth. At some points, you got the impression that they were floating, while at others it seemed they were ice skating.

The ice skating parts were rather intriguing. They acheived the affect by taking small, smooth steps. The length of the steps were such that they could retain a constant speed throughout the step. During these parts they traveled in curves, as Ice Skaters would, and at one point in time I think someone even did a triple toe-loop!