Choreographer in the Spotlight : David Parsons takes his company on first California trip

David Parsons is being watched. He knows it. And he seems to love it.

He walks confidently through crowded downtown Manhattan streets toward his Soho studio while pedestrians virtually gawk at the 6-foot-1 dancer, with his corn-fed good looks, blond hair, steely smile and graceful turnout.

At his studio, his six dancers listen to his easy-going choreographic suggestions with an attention bordering on infatuation. Later on, Parsons jokes easily with an onlooker, who had earlier been awed to be in the presence of one of Paul Taylor’s most riveting dancers. But the scrutiny isn’t always easy to handle.

Ever since Parsons left the Taylor company in ’87 and finally made the career shift from celebrated dancer to evolving choreographer, he says he’s being “checked out” by the New York dance world “non-stop.”

“Some people who think that I’ve had it too easy, who don’t like seeing my mug on the cover of Dance Magazine, have their nasty little eyes on me, waiting for me to have some kind of fall,” he says one morning before rehearsal, with only a trace of anxiety in the slang-heavy speech that could pass for California-surfer lingo.

“But I sure hope that when we go to L.A., there will be folks there just watching the moves and all, tuned into the very different dances for their own sake,” he says, referring to his company’s first California programs that will take place in Royce Hall, UCLA, on Friday and Saturday.

But Parsons also knows that there will be Taylor fans in L.A. who can’t help but see in him the heart and soul of Taylor’s “Arden Court,” “Roses” and “Last Look.” And Parsons has to admit that he is indeed “a Taylor creation,” in the midst of a “painful process of struggling to become his own creation.”

As an unformed lad of 17 from Kansas City, Mo., Parsons fit perfectly into Taylor’s rebellious notion of the male dancer: that he look like an American farmer and not a European prince, that he be a mover capable of brooding complexity and athletic lifts and bounds.

“Taylor taught me every damn thing I know,” Parsons confides, almost resigned to the implications that his apprenticeship as a dancer “somehow limits him” as a creator.

“Look, I was a devout Taylor disciple,” he confides. “I loved that man. We had a very special, almost collaborative, way of working together.

“I knew I had to excite him; that was all he wanted from a dancer, to risk, to fall flat on your face. I would do whatever the dance called for. I never once, in eight years, missed a rehearsal. That company was like a family to me. You can’t tell your body to forget all that no matter what your mind wants.”

And Parsons says that when it was time for him to leave that family and follow his own creative calling, he felt as if he were “mourning for months and months” and even began to wear “only black” as a statement of his “own sense of loss and confusion.”

In fact, Parsons believes that his own adoration of Taylor might account for some of the scrutiny he feels from various audience members and especially the press.

Unlike most modern dance choreographers, who base their styles on a violent rebellion against their predecessors, Parsons says he has no desire to reject what he considers “a good thing, a base from which to grow and get it together.”

“I’m not into the revolting scene,” he says with a smile. “I’m going to need more time before that.”

If anything, Parsons says he’s more “interested in watching myself and in fighting myself and my instinct, than in worrying about ‘being different’ than Taylor.”

In fact, the only differences Parsons says he cares about are the structural and choreographic ones he finds in his own works:

“Envelope” comments ironically on “message” ballets and slick lighting effects; “Walk This Way” incorporates pedestrian walking and running; “Caught” combines fast spins with the pulse of a strobe light; “Brothers” is a physically charged duet (created collaboratively with Daniel Ezralow) that explores the relationship between two men.

But the piece that seems unique to him is a dance he always ends his programs with: “Scrutiny.”

“(Characters) cover their eyes or stare down some of the dancers--excluding some, including others--finally figuring out how to dance without too much paranoia,” he explains.

Does he see any connection between the drama of that dance and his trauma to establish himself as a creator in his own right?

“You bet,” he replies, roaring. “People don’t know where to peg me,” he confesses. “And what really drives people so wild is that even though no one really knows who I am and what I stand for, my company is so far, knock wood, very successful,” he adds.

The company has toured extensively to Canada, Italy, Toronto and California this past year.

Parsons has also created works for American Ballet Theatre, the Feld Ballet and Momix. Before his California engagement, he will have choreographed a work for the National Ballet of Canada.

And in May, Parsons will appear with New York City Ballet as guest artist in Peter Martin’s “Barber Violin Concerto.”

Parsons bristles at suggestions that this success has come easier to him than most choreographers of his caliber, because of the beefcake glamour status he’s enjoyed as a Taylor figurehead.

“This ain’t Hollywood and I’m not running off to be in everyone’s movies,” he exclaims. “Everyone thinks this came easy to me . . . that I didn’t dedicate my life to dance, like I make a lot of money trying to have a company, or like I don’t have my doubts about how to keep us afloat, about how to make a good dance.”

“Of course, the Taylor thing has opened doors, expensive and powerful doors,” he agrees reluctantly. “But damn it, the work really does also speak for itself too. That’s the good thing about my injury. People don’t just want me, they want my dances.”

Parson was referring to a bone he broke on the bottom of his foot five months ago, an injury that was exacerbated when he persisted in dancing. At UCLA, former Joffrey, Tharp and Broadway dancer Gary Chryst will take Parson’s place, as he did last winter during a tour throughout Italy.

“It’s been a very hard year and this injury has got me down,” Parsons admits. “I love dancing and will miss it in L.A.

“But Gary (Chryst) is a great dancer and his taking my part has helped me to stand back from the work and analyze it as carefully as everyone else seems to.

“And when presenters call up and ask if they can produce us, I feel good now, because I know that they believe the work has strength, integrity, value. I am proud of my company and how far my dancers have come.

“There’s both a sad thing and a proud thing in watching the company instead of dancing with them. In some ways it’s easier to dance than to scrutinize.”