Taylor 2 Dance Company to peform at Fermilab
The Fermilab Arts and Lecture Series will present Paul Taylor's Taylor 2 Dance at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, in Ramsey Auditorium. The show is dedicated to longtime auditorium committee volunteer and former chairwoman Nancy Carrigan.
Tickets are $28, $14 for students 18 and younger.
Dance performances to be featured in the show will include Performing Airs, with music by Handel; Rune and Company B, with music of the Andrews Sisters.
This performance is dedicated to the memory of Nancy Carrigan, a long time Fermilab Arts and Lecture series volunteer, and chair of the Auditorium Committee. Some of Carrigan's artwork will be in the lobby on the evening of the performance.
Carrigan was a familiar Chicago area artist and poet. Carrigan's art work spanned many media including painting, sculpture, and engraving. Her Choreographer's Dreams series drawing from her interest in dance, incorporated sci-fi characters, mysterious numbers, and even parts of a circus parade. A photograph from a dance piece Charmed Quarks produced in conjunction with the series was ultimately used in National Geographic to illustrate an article on particle physics. A familiar piece by Carrigan was a sculpture Great Balls of Fire commissioned by Disney for the former Chicago ESPN Zone. More recently Carrigan had created a set of large Women in Shakespeare paintings. In the last decade Carrigan had worked on a series Myths without Words that brought together her interests in poetry and fables.
Carrigan's work in poetry and writing is no less important than her art. In the last decades she has composed a number of prizewinning poems. One, "Notes on an Ancient Chinese Flute," won a grand prize in the Dancing Poetry Competition in San Francisco. The prize included having a modern dance set on the poem and resulted in Carrigan going to China as a guest of the government.
Dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor established the Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company in 1993 to ensure that his works could be seen by audiences all over the world, unhindered by economic or technical limitations. Working with longtime colleague Linda Hodes, he modeled Taylor 2 after the original six-member company he established in 1954. Taylor 2 is able to perform in smaller venues with more modest budgets than the larger Paul Taylor Dance Company without sacrificing any of the artistry that characterizes a Taylor performance.
In selecting repertoire for Taylor 2, Taylor chooses dances that represent the athleticism, humor and range of emotions found in his work. Several of these dances have been reworked to enable the smaller ensemble of dancers to perform them.
Taylor 2 was inaugurated with a United States Information Agency-sponsored tour to six African nations in 1994, and in 1996 the Company toured to three Baltic nations. In 1997 Taylor 2 toured throughout India in tandem with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of India's independence. The Company's international touring has continued, with recent tours to Germany, Poland, Mexico and Canada.
Domestically, Taylor 2 tours extensively each year and has performed in all but two of the 50 states. Over the years, Taylor 2 has undertaken several statewide tours, including Wisconsin, Alaska, and South Carolina. In 2008, Taylor 2, in tandem with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, undertook an ambitious statewide tour of Pennsylvania, with performances in 20 cities and towns over four weeks. In November 2005, Taylor 2 and the Paul Taylor Dance Company completed an 18-month 50-State tour in celebration of the Taylor Company's 50th Anniversary.
Taylor 2 is particularly active within New York state and the New York City Public Schools, visiting classrooms in all five boroughs each year for performances, movement classes and lecture-demonstrations. Through affiliations with the Lincoln Center Institute and New York City Center, the Company performs for thousands of additional students annually.
To purchase tickets, call (630) 840-ARTS or visit www.fnal.gov/culture/. Ramsey Auditorium is in Wilson Hall, the central building of Fermilab. The address is Kirk Road and Pine Street, Batavia.