Paul Taylor Dance Company
The Paul Taylor Dance Company has been a presence in Fine Arts Center seasons since 1978.
One of the most revered and dynamic ensembles in modern dance, the company has been innovating and transforming dance since 1954. With a history of multidisciplinary collaborations, passionate expression, and thrilling athleticism, the company continues boldly into the future under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Novak.
For this performance, the company will bring us a classic work by its founder, Speaking in Tongues (1988), along with How Love Sounds, a 2025 commission by Hope Boykin, who currently serves as artistic advisor for dance education at the Kennedy Center and whose celebrated career as a dancer included tenures with Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Philadanco as well as twenty years with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
In Taylor’s piece, a melodic and haunting score with fragments of an evangelical broadcast propels an impressionistic look at religious fanaticism and hypocrisy in a town led by a charismatic preacher who is both a fearsome man of God and a weak-willed sinner. How Love Sounds offers a bright vision as nine dancers push boundaries in their performance set to a selection of Boykin’s favorite songs, which she says “sound like love.”