Taylor leaves Pittsburgh's Dance Alloy - News - artistic director Mark Taylor

Dance Magazine, Jan, 2003 by Karen Dacko

Dance Alloy's Mark Taylor has announced that he will step down as artistic director in July 2003. "I've been here for about twelve years. You get to a certain point when you ask, `What's next?'" explains the native Texan, who first choreographed for the Pittsburgh-based repertory troupe in 1985 and signed on as director in 1991. "The job's administrative demands have been taking me out of the studio. I am a studio person, not an office person," says Taylor, attesting to his "appetite for choreography," which he plans to pursue along with teaching opportunities. Because "the company is about to undergo a strategic planning process, it would have been remiss of me not to state my intentions," he explained.

While the current season proceeds with the annual Partners in Dance performances March 14-16 at home and with a residency at Maryland's Frostburg State University, April 4-6, Taylor is poised to assist with the transition process as the organization's administration and board reassess the needs of the company, school, community, and audiences.

"It's a difficult time for small arts organizations. It is my deepest hope to see the Alloy survive over the long term," Taylor says.

With his departure, the twenty-seven-year-old company loses "a creative, complex dancemaker," says Cheryl Difatta, executive director. Taylor's successor has not been named.

Taylor has developed the company's educational and outreach programs, mentored dancers, and assisted with the organization's move into spacious facilities on Penn Avenue in the Friendship neighborhood, but Difatta says his forte is "making friends easily with international artists. He has demonstrated a willingness to be multicultural to a level that Pittsburgh had not seen before. He also made the touring aspect happen."

But the major contribution of the past twelve years has been the Taylor-driven works featured each season. During his tenure, the award-winning choreographer, who blends release technique and body-therapy systems into his contemporary dance vocabulary, has created more than thirty works for his dancers, ranging from an experimental evening of improvisations to site-specific examinations of the Kent State University massacre. His forays into East Indian, native Hawaiian, Caribbean, and Eastern European cultures via collaborative projects, residencies, and teaching gigs produced works for local and international audiences that raised cultural consciousness and established the Alloy's viability.

"I've learned something from each of the works. Some projects have had longer lives; we toured extensively with David Rousseve's Crossings, a gospel music-driven production, commissioned during my first season," Taylor recalls. Choreographers Myriam HerveGil, Doug Elkins, David Grenke, Elizabeth Streb, Ann Carlson, Eiko & Koma, Sean Curran, Tere O'Connor, and Sarah Skaggs have also contributed to the repertoire. "My job has expanded my vision beyond my works and those of the choreographers whose dances I was curating. I've come to look at the company itself as a work of art," says Taylor, who previously directed what he termed "a single-vision ensemble," Mark Taylor and Friends, in New York.

According to Difatta, the Alloy, originally a nine-member collective, has always been an incubator for local talent. Taylor's nurturing spawned Attack Theatre, LABCO, and programming by independent artist Jennifer Keller. Says Tammy Faull, co-director of the fledgling Ampersand Dance Theatre, "We've been picking his brain for advice. Mark truly cares about dance and the dance community in Pittsburgh. His departure will be a loss to us."

Taylor, recipient of a Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Creative Achievement Award and Pittsburgh Magazine's Harry Schwalb Excellence in Arts Award, is keeping employment options open. As the Alloy's fifth artistic leader, he says, "I want to be remembered as the director who worked with a special group of dancers to create a long-term company, whose unspoken intimacy produced that spontaneous sense of ensemble."