Edition: U.S. / Global

DANCE REVIEW;Paul Taylor's Humor Takes Off as Duelists Fall in Love

Published: October 12, 1995

The creative types are different from you and me. It takes a Paul Taylor to think up the mayhem that cascades so hilariously from his latest premiere, "Offenbach Overtures."

Opening a two-week season on Tuesday at the City Center (131 West 55th Street), the ever-exuberant Paul Taylor Dance Company showed its master choreographer on the same comic roll that produced last year's side-splitting hit, "Funny Papers."

Offenbach Overtures" is not a masterpiece. Yet it is a work of genius simply because its high points make it so. Although humor is rare in dance, comedy comes naturally to Mr. Taylor. And that is because he always turns it into the human comedy, a distilled insight into feelings and foibles.

The newest example is a spoof of a 19th-century duel, which is at the heart of "Offenbach Overtures." As two duelists unexpectedly but visibly fall in love during the proceedings, their two seconds become just as obviously entangled in an aggressive brawl. There are no props: No guns and no sabers, only fingers that shoot out or flexed feet that clamp viselike around a sprawling opponent's neck as emotions are turned upside down. And all this with the men wearing large Napoleonic hats or hussar-like headdresses as Mr. Taylor's kinetic logic tells his tale.

Although the music of Jacques Offenbach, 19th-century France's most popular operetta composer, would seem to cry out for parody in this context, Offenbach is his own best self-parodist. Mr. Taylor's understanding of this aspect of the composer's music, mainly overtures, explains why he does not push too hard. "Offenbach Overtures" is a gentle piece that starts sweetly, but it is also crammed with dance jokes and illusions to belle epoque imagery that require quick looking. Mr. Taylor does not tarry; he makes his points with speed and wit.

Not surprisingly, Leonid Massine's 1938 "Gaite Parisienne," the world's most famous ballet to Offenbach, comes to mind. This is not just because Mr. Taylor's version of the cancan, with his dancers falling into an orgy of splits, seems to satirize a scene in that ballet. It is rather that, like "Gaite," Mr. Taylor's work is a compendium of social dances. Both Massine and Mr. Taylor favor the cakewalk and polka; a waltz rhythm rules his music, mostly overtures.

The barcarole from "The Tales of Hoffmann," used by Massine, is also heard in Mr. Taylor's fourth section, "Di Rheinnixen Overture," simply because Offenbach used the same tune in both. Essentially, Mr. Taylor is offering his take on the spirit of Offenbach. Jennifer Tipton's lighting audaciously sets the scene in each section. "Offenbach Overtures" could hardly succeed without the red backdrop she creates for the six couples in Santo Loquasto's red costumes with black trim as they waltz to the overture from "La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein." There is a lot of spring in the dancing and foppish wrist-crossing and entwining.

Mary Cochran and David Grenke position themselves like two endmen in a minstrel show. Their courtship is lyrical. But the solos to the "Barbe-Bleue Overture" are comic. Francie Huber yearns, Lisa Viola is a dizzy drunk, and Silvia Nevjinsky is a mock flamenco dancer.

The "American Eagle Waltz" recalls that Offenbach toured the United States in 1876, and it accompanies the pure American slapstick that defines the relationship among Patrick Corbin and Hernando Cortez as two duelists and their aides, Andrew Asnes and Thomas Patrick. Mr. Taylor makes good-natured fun of ballet steps as the music's virtuosity hits its peak. The comedy is in the visual counterpoint between the belligerent seconds and the waltzing duelists. It is an all-star quartet.

Ms. Cochran and Mr. Grenke returned as masked lovers for the fourth section and in the fifth led the cast (including Caryn Heilman, Edward Talton-Jackson, Rachel Berman Benz, Kristi Egtvedt and Andrew LeBeau) in the "Flocons de Neige Gallop." Mr. LeBeau, who has just joined the company, was thrust into Mr. Cortez's role while Mr. Cortez substituted for Richard Chen See, who injured his foot in the first piece, "Arden Court." Few in the audience seemed to notice that Mr. Asnes filled in for Mr. See in the last few moments.

This professionalism is a given in the Taylor Company, and if "Arden Court," to William Boyce's music, looks softer than it did in 1981, it is still breathtaking in its beauty and design. Mr. Talton-Jackson's long-armed majesty was striking.

What Mr. Taylor does so brilliantly is make music sound new. The best example is his Bach masterpiece, "Esplanade," in which walking, running and skipping, among other motor impulses, were turned by the company into an art form. In the third piece, Jill Echo, a newcomer, completed the cast.

Photo: David Grenke and Mary Cochran in "La Grande-Duchesse deGerolstein" Overture at City Center on Tuesday night. (Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)