Northrop

Paul Taylor Dance Company

The Joyce Theater brings three contemporary dance companies to Central Park, celebrating Jazz music through a wide range of styles. SummerStage alum Complexions Contemporary Ballet, founded in 1994 by Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, will perform Rhoden’s latest company premiere Midnight Riff, which celebrates legendary female vocalists including Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn, set to recordings by New York Voices. Led by Artistic Director Michael Novak, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, founded in 1954, makes its festival debut with the vibrant work by Resident Choreographer, Robert Battle, Under The Rhythm, set to music by Ella Fitzgerald, Wycliffe Gordon, and more. Finally, multi-Bessie award winner (2021/2023), New York Times lauded “Queen of Social Dance” and celebrated Best Dance & Breakout Star (2021) LaTasha Barnes is an internationally awarded and critically-acclaimed artist-scholar, curator, choreographer, and tradition-bearer of Black American Social Dance co-based in Phoenix, AZ and New York. A Richmond, VA native, she is globally celebrated for her musicality, athleticism, and joyful presence throughout the cultural traditions she bears: House Dance, Hip-Hop, Waacking, Authentic Jazz, and Lindy Hop, among them. Barnes’ expansive artistic, performative and wordsmithing skills have made her a frequent collaborator to The New York Times, Summer Dance Forever & Foundation Hip-Hop Center Amsterdam, International Center for Prince Studies, Singapore-based Timbre Arts Group, Jacob’s Pillow and many more.

One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has garnered a well-deserved international reputation for cultivating and honoring emerging and established dance artists whose work represents a wide range of aesthetic interests. Since opening in 1982, The Joyce has supported the dance community by providing a home for more than 400 domestic and international companies and by offering an annual 45 to 48-week season which, each year, allows more than 150,000 audience members to experience diverse, popular and challenging performances.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet / Paul Taylor Dance Company / LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum presents The Look of Love

Central Park

Esteemed for passionate expression and thrilling athleticism, Northrop-favorite Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to set the stage ablaze with highly charged, energetic modern dance — accompanied by a live orchestra. The dynamic ensemble, “one of the most exciting, innovative and delightful dance companies in the entire world” (The New York Times) continues to pulse with the powerhouse imagination of its namesake under the “Taylor-made” appointment of Artistic Director Michael Novak.

The vigorous program showcases three contrasting works that explore the complexities of the human condition through Taylor’s signature theatricality. It opens with the physically demanding dynamic geometry of Taylor’s “Brandenburgs” (Opus 88, 1988), an exuberant, gallant piece set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 6.

In a somber shift, the company premiere of resident choreographer Robert Battle’s “No Longer Silent” (2007) is a “searing” large-ensemble work — “arguably his strongest” according to The New York Times. The piece’s mechanical, ritualistic movement is intensified with “Ogelala” (Ballettmysterium) Op. 53 by Erwin Schulhoff, a Jewish composer whose work was banned in Nazi Germany. The evening concludes with a sensational new work by critically acclaimed choreographer Pam Tanowitz, “Messengers, Maidens and the End of Something Else,” danced to Franz Schubert’s haunting “Death and the Maiden,” with sets and costumes by visual artist Sarah Crowner.

Paul Taylor Dance Company with Live Orchestra

The Paul Taylor Dance Company is one of the world’s leading dance organizations. Founded in 1954 by cultural icon Paul Taylor (1930-2018), and now under the artistic direction of Michael Novak, the Company continues to innovate and transform the landscape of 21st-century dance performance and education with its vast international reach. This long-awaited return to the Newman Center features a mixed repertoire bill of Taylor’s beloved works Brandenburgs and Piazzolla Caldera, as well as resident choreographer Robert Battle’s exciting new work Under the Rhythm.