Strolling Through the Esplanade: A Dramaturgical Approach to Paul Taylor's Iconic Work

Madelyn Dempsey Dundon* and Jay Malarcher, College of Creative Arts, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Field (Broad Category): Dance History (Oral-Human Engagement) 

Student’s Major: Dance 

In Strolling Through the Esplanade: A Dramaturgical Approach to Paul Taylor’s Iconic Work, author Madelyn Dundon explores the qualities that make America’s last great giant of modern dance a humanist artist, and what makes Esplanade (1975) his definitive work. Through utilizing the diachronic and synchronic approach of dramaturgical research, Dundon formulates a firm grasp on Esplanade’s heritage and legacy. Diachronically, she concentrates on his teachers, including Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, and synchronically on such contemporaries as George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp, as well as multiple artists who influenced or were influenced by Taylor himself. This research paper was created in junction with the WVU School of Theatre & Dance’s performance of Esplanade in this year’s mainstage dance concert. Esplanade was restaged by faculty member and Paul Taylor Dance Company alum, Maureen Kaddar, and featured our program’s leader and fellow company alum, Dr. Yoav Kaddar, and Dundon was blessed with the opportunity to perform the work alongside a few selected dance majors. In interviews with members of the original 1975 cast (dancers Ruth Andrien and Bettie de Jong), current Paul Taylor Company member and interim head archivist, Lee Duveneck, and a visit to the company’s renowned studios in Manhattan, Dundon found that the consensus amongst company alumni, current dancers, critics and scholars alike, is that Esplanade was and remains Taylor’s most beloved and universal piece. 

Funding: 

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: My efforts were mainly voluntary. independent study