Paul Taylor Dance Company review, Royal Opera House – An athletic skip through modern American classics

On a frosty night, the dancers of the Paul Taylor Dance Company move with irrepressible warmth – bounding through American modern classics.

Taylor, who died in 2018, was one of the big names of 20th-century dance. A star performer with Martha Graham’s company, he founded his own in 1954. His choreography is boldly athletic, balancing large, confident energy with dashes of experiment and darkness.

Brandenburgs, created in 1988, makes a good introduction. Six men and three women sprint through buoyant, lively steps to a recording of Bach. Dancers curl into lines and groups, sharing smiles as they whizz past. It’s full of vitality and teasing musical detail. Each woman skips forward, then the third decorates the step with a spiky triple kick.

Alongside its core Taylor repertory, the company also commissions new works. In Under the Rhythm, Robert Battle – himself the leader of another legacy company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – pays tribute to jazz. Thirteen dancers line up, dressed in white shirts, black trousers, hats and ties and spats. They dip in and out of stomping footwork, with sharp handclaps adding a suggestion of tap rhythms.

Against this zingy chorus line, Battle weaves other rhythms, including spoken word. There are two grounded, flowing solos set to spirituals, and a snappy vaudeville duet to Ella Fitzgerald. As she scats through multiple songs, faster and faster, Alex Clayton and Lee Duveneck gleefully race to keep up with her outrageous virtuosity.

The sharpest dancing comes in Piazzolla Caldera, Taylor’s 1997 tango dance. The dancers bring a sumptuous movement quality to these steps, matched with an edge of confrontation. There’s a competitiveness to the flirtation, filled with power games and unexpected emotional dynamics.

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In one duet, Devon Louis and Jada Pearman somehow make a tiny unison shuffle even more intimate than a crotch-first leap onto your partner’s shoulders. Then you realise this isn’t a duet. Male couple John Harnage and Alex Clayton appear to be observers, but wind themselves into the drama, ending in a needy four-way tangle.

It can be easy for tango numbers to fall into cliche, but this one always feels unpredictable, balanced on a knife-edge. Dancers sweep into a grand closing pose, then collapse to the floor before crawling into the wings. Jessica Ferretti stalks through the action, right in the thick of it but holding herself aloof. It’s a searing finale to a fine, polished evening.

Until 31 January at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre