Review: Creative Process: The late, great Paul Taylor’s Three Dubious Memories

Dance International

In Paul Taylor: Creative Domain, director Kate Geis and her team remarkably capture the creative process of late American modern dance master Paul Taylor. The 82-minute documentary (released in 2015 and recently re-released on streaming platforms and DVD) records the process of Taylor choreographing a single dance, Three Dubious Memories (2011), from start to finish through rehearsal footage and interviews with Taylor and his company dancers.

The film gives the audience a privileged window into a world that usually only choreographers and dancers see — from initial casting to the unpredictable sweep of the creative journey, as Taylor (in his 80s at the time) teases out his own vision. It is thrilling to watch a career choreographer at work, and glimpse the inner life of an artist who started making dances in 1954 (and was an early member of both the Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham dance companies)…