Annmarie Mazzini in 'Changes'. Photo by Tom Caravaglia
As undergraduates at Southern Methodist University, Annmaria Mazzini and Michael Trusnovec used to take out every video the library had of the Paul Taylor Dance Company and watch them over and over. “We were pretty obsessed with the company,” Mazzini recalls. The two young dancers clearly knew where destiny was leading them. Both headed for New York City upon graduation and soon joined Taylor’s company, where they have blossomed into brilliant interpreters of the choreographer’s multi-faceted repertory.
Now a leading and highly versatile member of the company, Mazzini will demonstrate her range (not to mention her stamina) when she performs in all but two of the 19 dances scheduled for the current City Center season. Taylor has created roles for her in both of his latest works, and she is taking on several existing roles for the first time—including that of the heroine of one of his most original and fascinating works, his version of Le Sacre du Printemps, which is returning to the repertory.
Also returning is a more elusive work, Taylor’s 1963 Scudorama, not seen for nearly four decades. By all accounts, it is the polar opposite of his lyrical, shimmering Aureole, a repertory mainstay that was made the previous year. “It’s such a powerfully ugly dance, very raw and brutal,” Mazzini says as the company rehearses for the season. “You see the beginnings of so many later Taylor dances. It’s almost like the dance that birthed hundreds of others. You see images that became whole dances, over the years.”
In the chapter on Scudorama in his autobiography, Taylor recounts his dark, turbulent frame of mind as he created the work on his eight-member company (including a very young new member named Twyla Tharp). During a difficult rehearsal period—he often threw out everything he had come up with on a given day—he found the dance acquiring “a bonanza of atrocious imagery” such as “distress signals, shrouds and thrashings.” While waiting for the commissioned score (by Clarence Jackson), he worked with a recording of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. For the problem-plagued premiere, the set was not ready, the musical score, sent by bus, got lost in transit so the performance went on in silence, and one of the dancers was injured. Eventually, Scudorama was performed as intended, remaining in repertory for a decade.
In 1980, Taylor turned to Stravinsky’s landmark score intentionally rather than by default, and came up with a version of this oft-choreographed music that is richly layered, entertaining and thought provoking. One layer is a wryly depicted tale of a detective who returns a woman’s kidnapped baby. Mazzini, who now performs the lead role (with Trusnovec as the detective), performs the wrenching concluding solo, conceived in the 1913 original for a sacrificial maiden. “There’s some kind of madness that’s built into the music that when you do it, it kind of takes hold of you,” she says. “It’s a solo of great grief and loss and anguish. Dancing it is incredibly challenging and so cathartic.”
“One of the things that attracted me so strongly to Paul’s work is that it’s so multi-dimensional. I don’t feel pigeonholed into one kind of role. I get to really explore the range within myself. His two newest works embody that range and variety. Changes is set to classic 1960s songs by the Mamas and Papas. “The people are rejecting authority, but at the same time, they’re looking for love, approval and acceptance among each other. There’s definitely a lot of anger and rebellion. That’s where I come in—I get to be the angry one.
Setting a very different tone is Beloved Renegade, set to a choral score, Poulenc’s Gloria, with sections keyed by quotes from Walt Whitman. Mazzini describes her duet with Robert Kleinendorst as “a dance about love, taking pleasure in our bodies. It’s a little bit like euphoria, as if you’re drunk on love.” While creating the dance, Taylor “told us about how Whitman felt the body and soul were one, and also how he cared for soldiers, and was a very nurturing, caring person. I think those were the ideas he wanted to get across.”
After nearly a decade with the company, Mazzini still sounds stunned, even awed at where she finds herself. “The more you see Paul’s work, the more layers you discover. I’m just so thrilled to be a part of his work, this community, this family. It’s all I ever wanted.
Through Mar. 15, City Center, 131 W. 55 St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-581-1212; times vary; $10–$135.
Now a leading and highly versatile member of the company, Mazzini will demonstrate her range (not to mention her stamina) when she performs in all but two of the 19 dances scheduled for the current City Center season. Taylor has created roles for her in both of his latest works, and she is taking on several existing roles for the first time—including that of the heroine of one of his most original and fascinating works, his version of Le Sacre du Printemps, which is returning to the repertory.
Also returning is a more elusive work, Taylor’s 1963 Scudorama, not seen for nearly four decades. By all accounts, it is the polar opposite of his lyrical, shimmering Aureole, a repertory mainstay that was made the previous year. “It’s such a powerfully ugly dance, very raw and brutal,” Mazzini says as the company rehearses for the season. “You see the beginnings of so many later Taylor dances. It’s almost like the dance that birthed hundreds of others. You see images that became whole dances, over the years.”
In the chapter on Scudorama in his autobiography, Taylor recounts his dark, turbulent frame of mind as he created the work on his eight-member company (including a very young new member named Twyla Tharp). During a difficult rehearsal period—he often threw out everything he had come up with on a given day—he found the dance acquiring “a bonanza of atrocious imagery” such as “distress signals, shrouds and thrashings.” While waiting for the commissioned score (by Clarence Jackson), he worked with a recording of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. For the problem-plagued premiere, the set was not ready, the musical score, sent by bus, got lost in transit so the performance went on in silence, and one of the dancers was injured. Eventually, Scudorama was performed as intended, remaining in repertory for a decade.
In 1980, Taylor turned to Stravinsky’s landmark score intentionally rather than by default, and came up with a version of this oft-choreographed music that is richly layered, entertaining and thought provoking. One layer is a wryly depicted tale of a detective who returns a woman’s kidnapped baby. Mazzini, who now performs the lead role (with Trusnovec as the detective), performs the wrenching concluding solo, conceived in the 1913 original for a sacrificial maiden. “There’s some kind of madness that’s built into the music that when you do it, it kind of takes hold of you,” she says. “It’s a solo of great grief and loss and anguish. Dancing it is incredibly challenging and so cathartic.”
“One of the things that attracted me so strongly to Paul’s work is that it’s so multi-dimensional. I don’t feel pigeonholed into one kind of role. I get to really explore the range within myself. His two newest works embody that range and variety. Changes is set to classic 1960s songs by the Mamas and Papas. “The people are rejecting authority, but at the same time, they’re looking for love, approval and acceptance among each other. There’s definitely a lot of anger and rebellion. That’s where I come in—I get to be the angry one.
Setting a very different tone is Beloved Renegade, set to a choral score, Poulenc’s Gloria, with sections keyed by quotes from Walt Whitman. Mazzini describes her duet with Robert Kleinendorst as “a dance about love, taking pleasure in our bodies. It’s a little bit like euphoria, as if you’re drunk on love.” While creating the dance, Taylor “told us about how Whitman felt the body and soul were one, and also how he cared for soldiers, and was a very nurturing, caring person. I think those were the ideas he wanted to get across.”
After nearly a decade with the company, Mazzini still sounds stunned, even awed at where she finds herself. “The more you see Paul’s work, the more layers you discover. I’m just so thrilled to be a part of his work, this community, this family. It’s all I ever wanted.
Through Mar. 15, City Center, 131 W. 55 St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-581-1212; times vary; $10–$135.
Sinibaldi
