Scenes from Heaven and Hell

By Martha Duffy

A circle of tender lovers. A mound of human flesh, limbs dangling askew. A metaphor that combines fertility and civility. An image of doom and despair. It is a tribute to Paul Taylor's burgeoning imagination that in two new pieces premiered at Manhattan's City Center Theater, he has choreographed a pair of utterly different works, not so much contrasting as reflecting separate meditations on the human condition.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company, formed 30 years ago, is often described as the last true modern dance group, before the movement divided into various postmodern strands. If energy, cohesiveness and a deeply shared dance idiom are the characteristics of a "classic" modern company, then Taylor's troupe of 17 performers practically embodies the term. It seems to be on a particular roll now, bringing extra power and velocity to some of the most physically demanding choreography ever made.

Roses is Taylor's new affirmation, a celestial reverie on romantic love. Most of it is set to Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, a famous orchestral set piece that generations of concertgoers associate with the mythical warrior hero whose undoing came not in battle but in love. No matter. Taylor, though an astutely musical choreographer, has never cared much about the public history of the scores he picks. The Siegfried Idyll is the erotic pulse that the ballet moves to. In the long first section, five couples proclaim their love with both passion and a delicate concern for each other that is ineffably moving. The music changes to the Adagio for Clarinet and Strings, a brief, little-known chamber composition, also by Wagner. The couples recline at the rear of the stage, the women cradled between the men's knees. A sixth couple, David Parsons and Cathy McCann, costumed in dazzling white, enter and dance a charming, fluid duet. In the end the whole cast is joined in serene repose.

Roses is hypnotic to watch now, but it will probably get even better. It requires the kind of elegant, vigilant partnering usually associated with classical ballet and not much required in Taylor's lexicon. The dancers move through their roles in a slightly gingerly fashion, but they will loosen up. It may be that Roses is a little too idealized and courtly. In mood it has links to both Arden Court (1981), a brimming, buoyant, rather randy celebration, and the earlier Aureole (1962), a formal, pristine "white" ballet danced to Handel. In all these works, Taylor is like a benign god, bemused and profligate with his gifts: roles that buff his stage creatures to a high polish and provide audiences with airy, expansive images to contemplate.

The god turns wrathful in Last Look, a frightening vision of urban apocalypse set to Donald York's florid score. Between the opening and closing image--a heap of inert bodies--the dance is a frenzy of ugly action: twitches, tics, slaps, lunges. (The motions are in fact almost all variations of a single writhing phrase for the arms and torso, whirled into myriad variations.) The setting for all this grimness is a black stage flared at random by Jennifer Tipton's pitiless lighting. The nine dancers--the men in green jump suits, the women in flotsam pieces of evening wear--move among Designer Alex Katz's triangular pillars of Mylar, creating the effect of mirrors. At one point the dancers play a sadistic game of catch, hurling Reagan Wood as the ball. Parsons and Susan McGuire try to make love but cannot seem to get the necessary moves straight. Then Parsons, in a lacerating solo, apparently tries to rip himself free of his body.

It is all a vintage expressionist nightmare. Watching it is like seeing the entire wrathful output of a garrulous postmodernist like West Germany's Pina Bausch condensed into 21 minutes. The climax is a properly grotesque epiphany: the dancers catch a glimpse of their own faces in the mirrors and the sight is literally killing. Only a few spasms more and a faltering twitch of will, and these final players of the civilization game expire.

Last Look is so engrossing that when the lights go up for curtain calls, one wonders for an instant where these nine smiling young humanoids came from. They are sweaty and winded, for the dance is punishing to perform. If there is a standout among them, it is David Parsons, 25, who is also the most lyrical of the enchanted swains in Roses.

This is one of several triumphant seasons for Taylor, but it might be called Parsons' spring. After six years with the company, he is ranging widely through the repertory and dancing marvelously. That is not all. Having tested his skills for three years at the downtown Dance Theater Workshop, Parsons has choreographed two short ballets for the Feld Ballet, which is also performing in New York now. (Another is in the repertory of the Batsheva Dance Company, a modern troupe in Israel.) Caught is a technical feat using strobe lights. But Envelope is more substantial and could be Parsons' calling card. It is in part a sassy send-up of faddish "message" ballets and of bravura dramatic lighting effects--like, say, Tip- ton's. But it also bears a respectful resemblance to Three Epitaphs (1956), another funny, irreverent young man's fantasy--Paul Taylor's. -- By Martha Duffy