When the American choreographer Paul Taylor died at the age of 88 in 2018, he should have been consecrated a patron saint of modern dance. He had respectfully lifted the pall of earnestness and mythic archetypes that his mentor Martha Graham had stiflingly cast over it, and let the sunshine in. Graham may have been a pioneering genius and an earth mother, but she wasn’t much of a laugh, and after performing in her company as a young man for seven years, he needed a break.

Martha Graham may have been a pioneering genius, but she wasn’t much of a laugh

Fortunately for posterity, he only flirted with the alternative immediately available, the rigorously conceptual postmodernist Judson Church collective led by Yvonne Rainer, which focused on ordinary movement, extemporising and cross-media collaboration. It was 1962, things were loosening up, and Taylor just wanted to be free to dance, and what’s more to dance to music with a beat and a tune: 6ft tall and a champion........

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