MLC Barnstorms Area Schools November 14-18 with Taylor 2
Delaware Valley High School; Pocono Mountain High Schools East and West; Wallenpaupack High School; East Stroudsburg High School North, Lehman Intermediate School, Bushkill Elementary School; and Pocono Mountain Charter School All Participating in a Week-long Mountain Laurel Center Arts-in-Education Program
Bushkill, PA —- Mountain Laurel Center’s ongoing arts-in-education program will reach thousands of students next week when Taylor 2, the education and outreach arm of the celebrated Paul Taylor Dance Company, performs and teaches for more than half a dozen schools throughout Pike and Monroe Counties.
“This visit by Taylor 2 demonstrates Mountain Laurel Center’s ongoing commitment to enriching the lives of area students by helping them experience some of the world’s top artists,” said Richard T. Bryant, Mountain Laurel Center’s CEO. “We are literally barnstorming the region with some of the best young dancers anywhere,” he said, “not only demonstrating the central place that dance holds in arts and education, but also helping to provide students with a standard for excellence that is interesting, informative, and fun.”
Taylor 2’s engagement next week is the fourth in the Mountain Laurel Center’s Arts-in-Education series this year that has featured songwriting workshops by James Papoulis; a four-school honors jazz band performing with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble; and commedia dell’arte performances by The Flying Karamazov Brothers. The series will continue next February with a week-long residency by members of the contemporary dance company Pilobolus, and other programs, to be announced.
Mountain Laurel Center’s Arts-in-Education Program is funded by the US Department of Education, with additional funding by Sanofi Pasteur and the ESSA Foundation.
Taylor 2 was established in 1993 to ensure that Paul Taylor’s works could be seen by audiences all over the world unhindered by economic or logistical limitations. Mr. Taylor worked with longtime colleague Linda Hodes to create a company that could accommodate performance requests as well as teach and provide community outreach.
Mr. Taylor looked back to the 1954 origins of the Paul Taylor Dance Company for the structure of his new company: six professionals with a particular gift for his style who perform his work throughout the world.
In selecting repertory for Taylor 2, Mr. Taylor chooses dances that span the broad spectrum of his work. Many of the dances performed by Taylor 2 have been reworked from the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s version to enable the smaller ensemble of dancers to perform them. Critics and audiences cheer as Taylor 2 introduces the athleticism, humor and range of emotions found in Mr. Taylor’s work.
“Paul Taylor is without question the greatest living American choreographer, said the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle. “Taylor’s emphasis on emotion within actual movement, the rhythmic vitality of his accents, his all-American youthfulness and optimism, all have set standards for American dance.”
After a false start in the summer of 2003, Mountain Laurel Center was re-born last spring, first through its Arts-in Education Program, and then through its first full summer season at the Tom Ridge Pavilion. Featured performers have included The Boston Pops, Crosby, Still and Nash, BB King, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bela Fleck, Stanley Clarke, Bob Dylan, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The Beach Boys, Leahy, ZZ Top, Ricky Skaggs, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, and others.
For more information, please call:
MLC Winter Offices at Tamiment
570.426.2085 x 104
