The Paul Taylor Dance Company

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— with all its grace and depravity, contradiction and loss — tellingly complements our own search for meaning.

Now seventy-four and celebrating his company's fiftieth anniversary, Taylor came rather late to dance — he went to college on a swimming scholarship. (He went on to study and perform with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, among others.) As a former elite athlete, he values excellence, discipline, and protocol. Individually or considered together over the course of an evening's program, Taylor's pieces are structured to hit certain marks — physical, emotional, visual, and musical. That may sound old fashioned, and in some ways it is, but Taylor's formalism and formality serve a creative muse that is anything but dated. Taylor dances flood the theater with his insatiable curiosity and heart. Thanks to the University Musical Society, Taylor shares a thrilling selection of works from his long career over a two-night stand at the Power Center Friday and Saturday, October 8 and 9.

Over the years Taylor has created more than 100 dances, which divide roughly into three categories: breezy and lyrical; humorous character studies; and starkly pessimistic. But such capsules gloss an essential dualistic worldview. Like any good reporter, Taylor likes to mix it up.