It was clear from the beginning that Micaela Taylor was an extraordinary performer and it has been wonderful to watch this Los Angeles based dancer and choreographer’s career steadily grow and to read the glowing reviews as the rest of the world takes notice of her unique talents and choreographic style. On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 7:30 pm, Micaela Taylor’s The TL Collective will make its debut at the Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts at Chapman University, performing three original dances, including Drift, a work that explores an individual’s evolving relationship to self, and ’90Sugar (Premiere), a whimsical look at young adult life in our hyper-paced millennial world.
Micaela Taylor – Photo by Tatiana Willis
The performance at The Musco Center will complete a week-long residency for TL Collective at Chapman University’s Department of Dance led by Chair, Julianne Pedersen. Titled Next Dance, Leap of Art Residency, the residency begins on September 20, 2021 during which time the company will teach classes, share their professional experiences with faculty and students, and have the opportunity to tech new works in preparation for going on a national tour.
“It’s such an honor for the Musco team to help engage more than a hundred of our dance students with an ascending star whose work so effusively captures what’s next in dance today,” said Musco Center Executive Director, Richard T. Bryant.
The TL Collective in Micaela Taylor’s DRIFT – Photo by Renae Wootson, courtesy of the Ford Theatres.
Since founding The TL Collective in 2016, Taylor has created a series of successful works such as Molecular Fuel (2016), PopMadness (2017), SeeColour (2018), PowerShift (2019), and ROSEWOOD (2018). During the pandemic she and the company continued to work together and produced the wonderful dance film Toughskin. Her commercial work as both a performer and choreographer include Maiah Manser’s music video Doll, Local Natives-Tap Dancer, and Niki presents: Moonchild Experience. Taylor was honored with the first Springboard Danse Montreal EMERGE Choreographic Award in 2018, a prize that included a commission to choreography a new work, Eyesow (2019), for New York’s Gibney Dance Company. In 2019, Taylor also made Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” list.
Micaela Taylor + TL Collective – Photo by Steve Gunther
Taylor draws her choreographic style from her training in classical and contemporary dance, but her movement can be traced directly back to her Hip Hop roots. Emerging out of all that background of training and life experience, Taylor has done what few choreographers manage, to create her own unique movement vocabulary that continues to expand and to speak to audiences with interests in a multitude of dance genres.
“The movement language she works with has a very fresh quality … a quirky sense of individuality,” wrote Jennifer Stahl, Dance magazine’s editor in chief told the L.A. Times.
“A subtle spirituality emanates from her dances through an intuitive musicality that utilizes syncopation and counterpoint,” wrote Candice Thompson in Dance Magazine. “Yet, even in fast, complex phrases of movement and gesture, Taylor and The TL Collective surprise in their ability to come together in virtuosic unison.”
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WHAT: The TL Collective
WHERE: Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts at Chapman University
WHEN: Friday, September 24, 2021 at 7 pm (PT)
TICKETS are available now at muscocenter.org or by calling 844-OC-MUSCO (844-626-8726)
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For more information about Musco Center, a full schedule of events and to purchase tickets, click HERE.
Follow The Musco Center on Facebook; on Instagram; and on Twitter.
For more information on Chapman University, click HERE. To visit the Chapman University Department of Dance, click HERE.
To visit The TL Collective website, click HERE .
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Micaela Taylor – Photo by Sarah Prinz
