PAUL TAYLOR DANCE: Sunrise — Sunset

The Paul Taylor Dance Company continues its fall season at Lincoln Center with a triptych organizedd to showcase the range and resilience of its repertory. Taylor’s works can be poetic or stylistically distinct, but without reexamination or even minimal contextual framing, they risk drifting into the pleasant-but-distant past.

Sunset, Taylor’s bittersweet meditation on wartime camaraderie and fleeting connections, opens the evening in a soft sepia haze. Dancers appear in military khakis, moving through flirtations with women in bright dresses, their interactions unfolding like postcards from an imagined mid-century America. The charm is undeniable, especially in partnering that mixes tenderness with boyish bravado. Yet the emotional register feels preserved in amber. Its gender dynamics: men as soldiers, women as decorative respite go unchallenged, rendering the work nostalgic rather than reflective. What might once have been a gentle portrait of youth interrupted now reads as romance suspended over a historical void.

Under the Rhythm, by Robert Battle, the evening’s contemporary addition, promises a needed shift. Built on percussive drive and overlapping rhythmic phrases, it seeks looseness and communal grounding. But the company’s trademark polish works against it. The choreography wants risk; instead, it receives precision. Patterns accumulate and plateau, leaving the piece energetic but ultimately unsurprising.

Beloved Renegade, Taylor’s Whitman-inspired elegy set to Poulenc closes the evening. It is the most visually striking work: sculptural groupings, sweeping lines, and moments of true poignancy. Still, its emotional palette feels generalized. This meditation on mortality is beautiful but not urgent, more ceremonial than searching. Without specificity or contemporary resonance, the piece settles into tasteful reverence.

No question the company exhibits exquisite technique, but across all three works, the program reveals a company caught between preservation and reinvention.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Frankie Lehr