Paul Taylor Dance Company Returns to Lincoln Center

 

Paul Taylor Dance Company Returns to Lincoln Center 

 

November 3-22, 2026, with premieres by Lauren Lovette, Robert Battle and Pam Tanowitz, two company premieres, and classics by Paul Taylor

Three-Week Engagement Includes Works by Resident Choreographers

Lovette and Battle, a New York Premiere by Tanowitz, Company Premieres of Battle’s No Longer Silent and Alwin Nikolais’ Tensile Involvement and the
Return of Battle’s Under the Rhythm

Orchestra of St. Luke’s Performs Live Led by Music Director David LaMarche

New York, NY – The Paul Taylor Dance Company, the only Company to bring modern dance to Lincoln Center each Season since 2012, will return to the David H. Koch Theater for three weeks, November 3-22, 2026. The repertoire features classics by Paul Taylor that display his extraordinary range, from romantic to humorous and from poignant to controversial. The Season also includes world premieres by Resident Choreographers Lauren Lovette and Robert Battle; Pam Tanowitz's work will have its New York premiere, alongside the return of Battle’s Under the Rhythm (2025). Longtime music partner Orchestra of St. Luke’s will perform live, led by Taylor Music Director David LaMarche and Principal Guest Conductor Tara Simoncic. Tickets to the Season are on sale, with prices starting at $10, at www.boxoffice.dance.

“This Season’s Lincoln Center engagement brings together dances that speak to resilience, humanity, and the full range of emotional experience—works that offer beauty, humor, catharsis, and moments of profound reflection,” said Artistic Director Michael Novak. “Paul Taylor’s dances continue to illuminate what it means to be human in all its complexity, and that spirit carries through the new works and Company premieres this Season. Bringing together Resident Choreographers Lauren Lovette and Robert Battle, as well as Pam Tanowitz and dance innovator Alwin Nikolais, the repertory moves across an expansive musical landscape, from Schubert to experimental indie rock and contemporary orchestral scores. I hope audiences leave feeling moved, energized and reminded of the power of dance to connect us to one another.”

Continuing Artistic Director Michael Novak’s commitment to developing new work and championing today’s most compelling dance makers, the Season features two world premieres and one New York premiere. Resident Choreographer Lauren Lovette brings the music of American-Dutch experimental indie rock band The Books to life in her new work, 30 Incoming, with costumes and sets by Mark Eric and lighting by Brandon Stirling Baker. Resident Choreographer Robert Battle creates A Starling, a new work set to composer John Mackey’s Bells on the Garment of Silence, featuring lighting by James Ingalls and stage design and costumes by artist Anne Patterson. Pam Tanowitz returns for her second commission for the Taylor Company with Messengers, Maidens and the End of Something Else, featuring sets created from visual artist Sarah Crowner's paintings and sculptures, costumes by Harriet Jung and Reid Bartelme and lighting by Brandon Stirling Baker, set to Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.

The Season features two striking Company premieres. Robert Battle’s No Longer Silent (2007) is choreographed to a long-forgotten score by Austro-Czech Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff, who was banned in Nazi Germany and composed the work between 1922 and 1925. Schulhoff’s music will be heard at the David H. Koch Theater for the first time. Also featured is Alwin Nikolais’ groundbreaking Tensile Involvement (1953), a mesmerizing fusion of movement, lighting, and stage design in which dancers create a luminous “cat’s cradle” across the stage.

Paul Taylor’s masterworks anchor the repertoire, from timeless audience favorites Esplanade and Brandenburgs to works returning to Lincoln Center for the first time in more than a decade, including Arabesque, …Byzantium, Spindrift, and 3 Epitaphs. Other Season highlights include Airs, Cloven Kingdom, Last Look, and Piazzolla Caldera.

The Season will also include the Paul Taylor Dance Company Gala on Wednesday, November 4 at 6:00 p.m., honoring three extraordinary champions of the organization: legendary lighting designer Jennifer Tipton and celebrated set and costume designer Santo Loquasto, whose creative collaborations have helped shape the visual world of Paul Taylor’s dances for decades; and James Roe, President and Executive Director of Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Company’s longtime musical partner. The evening will feature a special performance including a world premiere, Alwin Nikolais’s Tensile Involvement and Paul Taylor’s Brandenburgs, followed by a celebratory dinner and dancing with the Taylor dancers. Gala and performance-only tickets are available. For additional information, please visit https://paultaylordance.org/gala.

Expanding Access
The Season continues PTDC’s commitment to welcoming audiences through a range of initiatives:

• John and Jody Arnhold Tier 3 Dance Education & Audience Education Initiative – Celebrating its 11th year, this impactful program has welcomed more than 30,000 New York City public-school students, families and teachers to the Koch Theater. In partnership with the Taylor Center for Dance Education, the initiative continues to provide free tickets, including a dedicated daytime performance on November 18, designed to support school field trips and student attendance, while introducing thousands of young people each year to the transformative power of modern dance at Lincoln Center.
• $20 Under 40 – Audience members ages 40 and under may purchase $20 tickets with online registration at www.paultaylordance.org/20under40.
• Student Rush Tickets – Students with a valid ID may purchase up to two full-price tickets for only $10 each at the box office on the day of the performance, subject to availability.
• Family Express (November 14 and 21) – Two family-friendly matinees featuring 75-minute programs for audiences of all ages. Attendees are invited to take a complimentary class at the Taylor Center for Dance Education. https://paultaylordance.org/center-dance-education/
• Polaris Project – Now in its fifth Lincoln Center Season, the Polaris Project expands access to modern dance through partnerships with schools, universities and nonprofit organizations, offering performances, workshops, educational programs, post-show discussions, and free or affordable tickets. Since its founding in 2022, the initiative has welcomed thousands of participants from more than 140 partner organizations to the Koch Theater, creating meaningful opportunities for audiences of all ages to experience live dance — often for the very first time.
  
  

2026 Season Calendar
All performances at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center.
All choreography by Paul Taylor unless otherwise noted.

Tuesday, November 3, 7 p.m.

Airs

Piazzolla Caldera

No Longer Silent (Battle)***

Wednesday, November 4, 6:00 p.m. — Gala Performance
Honoring Jennifer Tipton, Santo Loquasto and James Roe

A Starling (Battle)*

Tensile Involvement (Nikolais)***

Brandenburgs

 

Thursday, November 5, 7 p.m.

30 Incoming (Lovette)*

3 Epitaphs

Tensile Involvement (Nikolais)***

Piazzolla Caldera

 

Friday, November 6, 8 p.m.

Airs

A Starling (Battle)*

Esplanade

 

Sunday, November 8, 3 p.m.

Brandenburgs

Messengers, Maidens and the End of Something Else (Tanowitz)**

No Longer Silent (Battle)***

 

Tuesday, November 10, 7 p.m.

Arabesque

…Byzantium

Esplanade

 

Wednesday, November 11, 7 p.m.

Spindrift 

Last Look 

Brandenburgs

 

Thursday, November 12, 7 p.m.

Arabesque

30 Incoming (Lovette)*

Piazzolla Caldera

 

Friday, November 13, 8 p.m.

Under the Rhythm (Battle)

Last Look

Brandenburgs

 

Saturday, November 14, 2 p.m. – Family Express

Cloven Kingdom

Tensile Involvement (Nikolais)***

Under the Rhythm (Battle)

 

Saturday, November 14, 8 p.m.

Messengers, Maidens and the End of Something Else (Tanowitz)**

…Byzantium

No Longer Silent (Battle)***

 

Sunday, November 15, 3 p.m.

Spindrift

3 Epitaphs

Tensile Involvement (Nikolais)***

Piazzolla Caldera

 

Tuesday, November 17, 7 p.m.

Under the Rhythm (Battle)

30 Incoming (Lovette)*

Cloven Kingdom

 

Wednesday, November 18, 7 p.m.

Arabesque

Last Look

Esplanade

 

Thursday, November 19, 7 p.m.

Spindrift

A Starling (Battle) *

Piazzolla Caldera

 

Friday, November 20, 8 p.m.

Arabesque

Messengers, Maidens and the End of Something Else (Tanowitz)**

No Longer Silent (Battle)***

 

Saturday, November 21, 2 p.m. – Family Express

Cloven Kingdom

Tensile Involvement (Nikolais)***

Under the Rhythm (Battle)

 

Saturday, November 21, 8 p.m. 

Airs

3 Epitaphs

Tensile Involvement (Nikolais)***

Esplanade

 

Sunday, November 22, 3 p.m. 

…Byzantium

A Starling (Battle)*

Brandenburgs

 

*World Premiere
**New York Premiere
***Company Premiere

 

For more information and full Season details, visit paultaylordance.org. Follow us at @paultaylordance.org.

Leadership funding provided by Stephen Kroll Reidy. Major support provided by The SHS Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, the Alex Katz Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and an anonymous donor. Lincoln Center Season sponsorship support provided by Baron Capital Group, Inc. Additional major funding provided by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Paul Taylor Dance Company gratefully acknowledges the estates of Harlan Morse Blake and Mary J. Osborn for their transformational gifts.

Robert Battle (Resident Choreographer) Robert Battle’s journey to the top of the modern dance world began in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, Florida, where he showed artistic talent early. He attended Miami’s New World School of the Arts and then the dance program at The Juilliard School where he met his mentor, Carolyn Adams. He danced with Parsons Dance from 1994 to 2001, and set his choreography on that company starting in 1998. Mr. Battle founded his own Battleworks Dance Company in 2002. A frequent choreographer and artist in residence at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since 1999, he set many of his works on the Ailey Company and Ailey II. In July 2011 he was personally selected by Judith Jamison to become Artistic Director of Ailey, making him only the third person to head the Company since it was founded in 1958. During his 12 years as Artistic Director he expanded the Ailey repertory with works by artists as diverse as Kyle Abraham, Mauro Bigonzetti, Ronald K. Brown, Rennie Harris, and Paul Taylor. He also instituted the New Directions Choreography Lab to help develop the next generation of choreographers. In spring 2025 he was invited to be a Resident Choreographer for the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

David LaMarche has been working as a conductor in the dance field for more than thirty-eight years.  He served as Music Director for the Dance Theatre of Harlem from 1993 to 1998 and conducted many of the company’s premieres. In addition, he composed and arranged several scores for the repertory.  As a guest, he has conducted for New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Houston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Limón Dance Company, Paul Taylor Dance Company, L’Opera di Roma, Het National Ballet and Ballet West. The orchestras he has directed include the Houston Symphony, the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, the Pacific Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Paris Opera Orchestra, the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Moscow Radio Orchestra, the Tivoli Festival Orchestra, and the Orchestre Lamoreux. Maestro LaMarche is currently in his twenty-third year on the staff of American Ballet Theatre. In 2018 he joined  the Taylor Company as conductor and has been their Music Director since 2022.tro LaMarche is currently in his twenty-third year on the staff of American Ballet Theatre.

Lauren Lovette is the first Resident Choreographer selected by Taylor Artistic Director Michael Novak for the Taylor Company. As a principal dancer at New York City Ballet, Lovette choreographed for the 2016 Fall Fashion Gala. She was awarded the Virginia B. Toulmin Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU in 2018, and a year later created a second work for the Fashion Gala. In addition to Paul Taylor and NYC Ballet, her work has been commissioned and performed by American Ballet Theatre, Vail International Dance showcased in a self-produced evening, Why It Matters. Lovette received the Clive Barnes Award for da??nce in December 2012 and was the 2012-2013 recipient of the City Ballet Janice Levin Award. In 2021, she stepped down from her position there to embark on a career devoted to more equal measures. In 2023, Lovette joined the Nantucket Dance Festival as Co-Artistic Director.

Alwin Nikolais (1910–1993) was one of the most influential innovators in modern dance, known for redefining the relationship between movement, music, lighting, and stage design. As director of the Henry Street Playhouse beginning in 1948, he developed a groundbreaking form of abstract dance theater that transformed dancers into part of a larger theatrical environment. A choreographer, composer, and designer, Nikolais created immersive works that reshaped the possibilities of performance and influenced generations of artists. His awards included the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, and France’s Legion of Honor.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) is an independent orchestra and performing arts organization based in New York City. Founded in 1974 as St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and expanded into an Orchestra in 1979, OSL has become a “mainstay of New York’s classical scene” (New Yorker). Today, OSL appears throughout the season at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, a celebrated specialist in 18th-century music. OSL performs and produces in a variety of formats, including three signature concert series curated expressly for each of Carnegie Hall’s iconic venues, programs focused on contemporary composers presented throughout the five boroughs, collaborations with Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center, a composition institute, and much more. The orchestra has commissioned more than 50 new works and has given more than 175 world, U.S., and New York City premieres, while also participating in 118 recordings, four of which have been recognized with Grammy Awards. OSL’s education and community engagement programs bring classical music learning and inspiration to tens of thousands of students and families each year through school-time and community concerts and the over 100-student strong Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In 2011, OSL opened The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York City’s only rehearsal, recording, and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, serving thousands of local and international musicians each year.

Pam Tanowitz is a NYC-based choreographer. Her company, Pam Tanowitz Dance, has performed at Bard Summerscape festivals (2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2025), La Biennale di Venezia, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Barbican Centre, Lincoln Center and New York City Center. She has created three ballets for The Royal Ballet and is currently working on a fourth. Other companies that have danced her dances are New York City Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Miami City Ballet and Australian Ballet. She has also created dances for Vail Dance Festival and The Juilliard School. Artistic highlights include Fisher Center at Bard Choreographer-in-Residence (present), Doris Duke Award (2020), LMCC Liberty Award for Artistic Leadership (2022), NYCC Artist at the Center (2023), Jacob’s Pillow Award (2024), Herb Alpert Award (2019), Juilliard Creative Associate (2024, 2025) and Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University (present).
Paul Taylor (1930-2018) was one of the most accomplished artists this nation has ever produced. He established the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954, serving as both a virtuoso performer and a trailblazing choreographer until 1974, when he turned exclusively to choreography. During his 64-year career as a dance maker, Mr. Taylor helped define and shape the home-grown American art of modern dance through a matchless repertoire of 147 works with an extraordinary range of subject matter. Mr. Taylor won public and critical acclaim for the vibrancy, relevance, and power of his dances, offering cogent observations on life’s complexities while tackling some of society’s thorniest issues.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company is one of the world’s leading dance organizations, based in New York City and with vast international reach. Under the artistic direction of Michael Novak, together with the best dancers, choreographers, educators, and creatives, the Company continues to innovate and transform the landscape of 21st-century dance performance and education. The Taylor Company was founded in 1954 by Paul Taylor (1930-2018), one of America’s most celebrated artists, whose work reflected his belief that dance can convey complex truths about the human experience.

The hallmark of the Company is the brilliance of its ever-expanding repertory. Of the 170 dances that exist within the canon (147 choreographed by Paul Taylor), many are hailed as among the greatest works of the 20th and 21st centuries. While celebrating these masterworks of the past, the Company invests heavily in the future of the art form, appointing Lauren Lovette as the Company's first Resident Choreographer in 2022 and Robert Battle as the Company’s second Resident Choreographer in 2024. Dedicated to sharing dance and education with the broadest possible audience, the Taylor Company sustains a global presence through its robust touring programs. Since its first European tour in 1960, the Company has performed in more than 600 cities in 66 countries, representing the United States at arts festivals and touring extensively under the aegis of the U.S. Department of State.

With a vast new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, Taylor Dance West, adding to its longtime downtown studios, Taylor Dance East, the Company under Mr. Novak is positioned to be a greater resource in New York City. Its three creative sites across the city - Lincoln Center for the annual performance season, Midtown for Company creation and training, and the Lower East Side for dance instruction and community engagement - together realize Mr. Novak's vision for multiple spaces across the city to connect with the world of Taylor. For more information please visit www.paultaylordance.org.

 

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