Manhattan Strip Clubs: Double bill of dance premieres is ‘Taylor’ made for company
Most poignant, however, is Taylor’s use of Debussy’s music “Le Coin des Enfants” (“The Children’s Corner”). In this adult playground, Taylor’s characters make themselves as vulnerable as children, heedlessly giving way to desire. Like those characters who stumble in Taylor’s “Changes,” a tribute to ’60s youth, “Brief Encounters” suggests a loss of innocence that is hard to accept.
“Also Playing,” the second premiere, touches in a different way. The latest Taylor work to comment on the life of the theater (after pieces like “Le Sacre du Printemps (“The Rehearsal”), “Also Playing” takes place beneath a grandiose proscenium, where hackneyed crowd-pleasers follow in quick succession. Satirizing popular taste, Taylor offers cape-twirling, fluffy waltzes and a tap-dancing horse. There are gypsies with tambourines, a sly stripper and a dying swan whose grief is amplified by a trio of mourners.