Paul Taylor.

Paul Taylor performing in Fibers.

Lisa Viola and Michael Trusnovec in Dante Variations.

A performance of Esplanade.

Watching any given program by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, you can experience the most noble and harmonious aspects of the human condition, and also explore the darker, more depraved depths of the human soul. You can see dancers soar with openhearted abandon and lyrical ease, carried along by baroque music from which their joyful configurations seem to arise spontaneously. You can also see these same dancers enact a nightmare vision of the ideal American family gone horribly awry, descending into decadence. In one work, they summon up all the verve and forthright optimism of an earlier decade, while subtly insinuating the loss and devastation of wartime. In another, elegant women in ball gowns and men in tuxedoes are overtaken by animalistic urges in the midst of their graceful decorum.

Wondrous, continually surprising works have been pouring forth from the delightfully quirky and unpredictable imagination of Paul Taylor, by now long established as one of America's truly great choreographers, for half a century. His company is celebrating its 50th anniversary in style, with an extended tour to all 50 states. The centerpiece of the festivities is its annual New York City season at City Center, augmented to a three-week celebration (March 1 - 20) offering a generous repertory of 19 dances. These range from the wickedly clever 1956 miniature Three Epitaphs right up through his two newest creations, and include many brilliant highlights from his versatile output.

Near the end of his deft and engaging autobiography, Private Domain, Taylor recalls that in 1954 “with no vision for the future, and only as a means to get myself onstage, I corralled a small number of acquaintances and began to give concerts. Back then there were no grants, no organization, no packaging and no one to consult for guidance.” He admits he had no idea how to form a company, but did have “an appetite for dancing, and an attitude that had to do with taking days one at a time, and a naive belief that there were no obstacles or riddles that couldn't be solved by ignoring them.”

At the time, Taylor was a former art major and swim-team member at Syracuse University who had experienced what he describes in the book as a “flash of recognition” and an “unignorable hunch” telling him, seemingly out of the blue, that he was to become a dancer. Fortunately for the development of American modern dance, he willingly followed that hunch, switching after his junior year to New York's eminent Juilliard School, soaking up instruction from all the major dance luminaries of the time, and eventually starting to try his own hand at choreography. He studied and performed with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, and overcame his late start brilliantly.

“I was very fortunate in being able to work with so many of the founders of modern dance,” Taylor recalled during a recent phone interview from his home on the North Fork of Long Island. He took classes all over, performed in the concerts that choreographers managed to put on with nonexistent budgets, and helped support his modern-dance habit with dance jobs on Broadway (including a brief, ill-fated stint in the ensemble of Peter Pan) and television specials. “Onstage is where you really learn, and in those early days, I did get onstage a lot,” he said.

“When I wasn't working with somebody else, I still wanted to perform, and I'd brew up some dances, show them in ratty places.” He was also, starting in 1955, dancing in Graham's company, where his athletic physique and strong presence soon earned him leading roles. By 1962, he felt ready to strike out on his own. “The time had come, I thought, and I gave a year's notice. She never scolded me or said anything. I had her blessing. She always came to see my work,” Taylor said.

1962 was a landmark year for another reason: Taylor choreographed Aureole, which has become one of his most classic and beloved works. A deceptively breezy, playful yet tender dance for five white-clad dancers, it was set to music by Handel, at a time when “it was customary to use modern composers,” Taylor recalls. “I suppose it was kind of cheeky of me to use Handel. I thought they would be shocked.” Instead, they were enraptured – as audiences have been ever since.

It will, of course be seen at City Center, as will other works that one would have to include when making a list of Taylor's most significant, influential and enduring. Esplanade (1975), a luminous, deeply human work seemingly built on natural movements, makes you listen to Bach in a completely new way. In his daring 1980 Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal), Taylor took on the historical baggage of Stravinsky's famous score and upended it into a wacky, layered dance that was part detective drama, presented with silent-movie bold outlines, and part a sly commentary on the operations of a dance company. Company B (1991) took the bouncy popular songs of the Andrews Sisters as a jumping-off point for a dance that is both buoyantly entertaining and wrenchingly poignant. In 1997 Taylor produced one of his most sensuous and gritty works, Piazzolla Caldera. Capturing the essence of Astor Piazzolla's fierce music but not using any specific tango steps, he evoked a smoky, harsh world of uneasy alliances and tough encounters. In 2002 he returned to Bach, a composer who frequently inspires him, and produced the astounding Promethean Fire, a full-company work of dark beauty and haunting resonance. Deborah Jowitt described it in the Village Voice as a “fierce, purifying ritual.”

“It was one of those fortunate times when things just clicked and went right along,” Taylor recalls about the making of that piece, which is set to Stokowski's grandiose orchestrations of three Bach scores. “The dancers were so quick to learn that it hardly took any time at all. All of them were on the same wavelength.”

The joy he takes in challenging his 16 dancers is what keeps him going back into the studio. “I always look forward to working with the dancers. I like ‘em,” he states with a chuckle. “I like to watch them move – and they're so cooperative. They catch on, and they don't need a lot of explanations. There's a lot of mind reading that goes on, after you've worked with dancers for a while.”

Asking Taylor to talk about what prompts him to start a new dance results in a lot of talk about the practicalities involved. “First I have to figure out how long the rehearsal period is, which dancer needs a new part. I look at the current repertory and try to think of what would offer contrast. Once I have that information, I start to look for music.” He has “stacks and stacks” of recordings and spends a lot of his time at his house (where he also loves to garden, do elaborate jigsaw puzzles, and build things out of wood and debris he finds on his property) listening to them. “I'm not musically educated. I don't read music at all. I just listen a lot, and the music tells me what I might do.”

Taylor, who turns 75 this year, danced well into his 40s, until his body gave out after years of punishing performing and touring. As difficult a turning point as that is for any dancer, he forged ahead to create one terrific and surprising work after another. Esplanade was the first to emerge after he stopped dancing, and clearly indicated he was boldly moving forward into a new phase, in a way liberated by leaving the stage. “It's a big help being able to see the dances, which you can't do when you're in them. I think my dances got better once I got offstage,” he said. “I try, I hope, to make dances that will not date – you can't really control whether a dance dates or not, but you hope that it will speak to people of different generations.”

At any given moment, he is fascinated by his current or upcoming dance. There are two New York premieres at City Center: Dante Variations, set to a barrel-organ recording of music by György Ligeti. “I had this idea about giving the dancers some kind of restriction, so they're tied in different ways. There's this subtle underlying humor to it, too,” he says of the dance. Klezmerbluegrass, true to its title, combines arrangements of those two quite different styles of music. You wouldn't think it, but they do have something in common, and they go together very well,” he notes. At the time of the interview, he was already deeply involved in his next dance, which the San Francisco Ballet will premiere in Paris in July.

Clearly, the sudden urge to dance that fortuitously struck Taylor as a college student launched him on a path that has enriched the art form immensely and has established him as one of our richest creative voices. And happily for his eager and admiring audiences, his fascination with making new dances and exploring new possibilities remains undiminished.