Opus Number: 21
Music: Pierre Boulez
Costumes: Louise Thompson
Date First Performed: February 13, 1960
Notes: “The new dance Meridian is a small masterwork. Nothing seems out of place; it contains so much, and yet so little, that we know about. What happens that might seem to have special significance doesn’t have any significance beyond itself, I believe. it is so utterly commonplace, in a way, to have a dancer roll in on a little cart with an object (a pole with a paper thing on the end of it) that seems ultimately desirable to the other dancer (I should say, the idea is commonplace). Yet Mr. Taylor makes the incident seem supremely important. And it is, because of the way it happens. Also it is really funny and wonderful. Then the two men carry in another precious object, a kind of boulder in black that they hand back and forth with great care until they set it down in the center. the mystery package is the girl, and she is revealed then as a lovely thing in white. The dance ends with stark, but quiet, stepping patterns, resolved in a motionless stance that breathes past the ending.” – Jill Johnston, The Village Voice
Paul Taylor, Dan Wagoner, and Elizabeth Walton, photo by Alix Jeffry
