Yesterday , my heart exploded. Jagged pieces landed down in the form of a beautiful highlight to an otherwise ordinary day. Watching Esplanade by Paul Taylor made me realize what a huge phenomenon I had the pleasure to partake in.
It was a beautiful piece. Here is a term paper I wrote on the dance.

This paper reverberates my thoughts on the performance “ Espanade” by Paul Taylor Dance company. Esplanade means a space to walk outdoors and Paul Newman Dance Company’s website(ptdc.com) says that Paul Taylor created this piece taking inspiration from a woman trying to catch a bus. Sure enough, throughout the whole performance, the dancers were trying to run and walk around with a pedestrian nonchalance, which was reflective of the natural motions of the human body, a foundation of modern dance. Esplanade was seizing. I was amazed at how gracefully the dancers would turn one way and the immediately reverse directions.The movements of the piece integrated perfectly with soaring musical waves of Bach in the background. What began with rudimentary movements of walking and running slowly unraveled itself as a virtuoso piece that eloquently portrayed the human condition.

The piece exhibited a sublime tenderness, and at other times made me gasp with its bold daring, lightning speed, and the dancers’ sheer physical power as they hurl themselves with reckless abandon into each others’ arms and then down to the floor and up again. These snap movements were reminiscent of a combination we performed in class , in which were at first rocking slowly on four sides and within seconds we threw ourselves on the floor , rolled and stood up.

In many combinations taught in our class , we were made to fall on the floor and roll , which was hard for me and made me wonder why it was a constant companion of every combination , but in Esplanade , , towards the end , one performer after another ran across the stage, took a flying leap, looked suddenly back over his or her shoulder, and then crashed to the floor. It was breathtaking and made me understand modern dance’s weighted use of the body in relation to the ground. I also observed the perfect Piqués and Degage’s of the dancers, and Ms.Armstrong’s emphasis on not letting the back of the feet visible to the audience started making more sense.

Finally , I noticed that just as in the movements of Esplanade , the steps we practiced in our modern dance class had a freedom and a sweep to them, a rythm and a sense that we were almost flying across the floor, dancing in a way that expressed a joy that can sometimes be found only in dance—and in life.

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