BEAVER CREEK — By any definition, the Paul Taylor Dance Company is an American cultural icon.
This stalwart New York troupe, which has performed in more than 520 cities worldwide and earned a long list of honors, celebrated its 54th anniversary in May — an extraordinary accomplishment in the topsy-turvy dance world.
The company looked as vibrant, committed and abundantly skilled as ever Monday evening, as it made its overdue debut at the Vail International Dance Festival before a sell-out audience in Beaver Creek’s Vilar Performing Arts Center.
The program, which put the accent on lightness and fun, opened with “Diggity” (1978), a cute, wonderfully zany piece. The laughs begin right away, as the curtain opens to reveal a dancer standing slightly off-kilter in a field of dog cut-outs created by famed artist Alex Katz.
Taylor relied, as he often does, on basic movements, especially skipping, scampering and stutter steps, as well as a kind of twist-hop combination, interweaving them with a whimsical, deliberately nonsensical narrative.
The middle of the program was devoted to Taylor’s latest creation, “Changes,” which premiered earlier this year. There is nothing particularly original or complex about this 15-minute work — an entertaining, high-energy romp but little more.
He has crafted a kind of choreographic time machine, taking his audiences back to the 1960s, complete with psychedelic, period costumes and movement based on the social dances of the time. To anyone who lived through that era, it will all be instantly familiar.
Set to the music of the Mamas and the Papas, the movement is essentially divided into three largely predictable categories that reflect the drug-infused culture of the time: gyrating and hyper-kinetic; slow-motion and almost trancelike; and stumbling and nearly out of control.
The evening ended with Taylor’s great, effervescent masterpiece, “Esplanade” (1975), in which he shrouds complexity in the simplest of movements, especially joyous running and falling. A signature moment is a female dancer playfully hopskotching over six other prone dancers.
The dance festival runs through Aug. 9, with the Pacific Northwest Ballet next performing three programs, beginning at 7:30 tonight in the Gerald R. Amphitheater in Vail.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
