Boys Don’t Dance? Watch Michael Novak Do It Anyway

The artistic director of Paul Taylor Dance Company carries its founder's legacy into Detroit with three masterworks — and a story shaped by resilience, identity and art

Novak main — Michael Novak. Photo: Rachel Neville

Published: April 2, 2026 | Last Updated: April 3, 2026

Just before Michael Novak, the artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, spoke at a late-March talk and screening of “Dancemaker,” the 1998 documentary about Taylor’s early career as a choreographer, he’s seated in a quiet corner at 215 West in Ferndale. He’s remembering the last time he was in Detroit with the company in 2018. It wasn’t made public that Taylor had asked him, then a dancer, to step into the director role. Behind the scenes, he was already thinking, “It’s not about you anymore. It’s about the whole machine, the whole ecosystem.”

When Taylor, who founded the company in 1954, died just months after passing Novak the baton, the pressure intensified. Details were still being worked out, the press didn’t know Novak had assumed the title of artistic director and he asked himself, “How do you manage this massive legacy that has an incredible history, has an incredible following, but the founder’s gone?” Over the last eight years, he has found the answer: by honoring Taylor’s spirit while letting the company breathe on its own.

On April 11 and 12, the company returns to Detroit, performing three of Taylor’s masterpieces at the Detroit Opera House: “Brandenburgs,” “Company B” and “Esplanade.” “Brandenburgs” features athletic choreography set to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. “Company B” recalls the World War II era against the musical backdrop of the Andrews Sisters. “Esplanade,” meanwhile, is described by The New Yorker as “a mythic dimension on ordinary aspects of our daily lives.”

During those performances, Novak, as he does, will “watch the work, yes, but also watch the audience.” He says watching their reactions has been his artistic compass.

Before he became the artist he is today, Novak grew up in Illinois in the late ’80s and early ’90s, facing a combination of challenges that might have discouraged anyone else from pursuing a career in the arts. He was bullied for being “different” and for choosing dance as a boy. “Men don’t dance — it’s a huge stereotype,” he says. “That stereotype is reinforced constantly. I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. And I do have a stutter… even the word ‘stutter’ is hard to say.”

“I didn't speak for about a year or so, or I couldn't,” he adds. “It was so hard to get words out and dance became the only way I could relate to the world and gesture became everything for me.” Dance, he says, was “freedom.”

In our conversation below, Novak reflects on the responsibilities of artistic leadership, the lessons of resilience and the joy of watching Taylor’s work continue to inspire.

When you started as artistic director in 2018, what were the first steps you took to honor Paul’s legacy while continuing to move the company forward?

When Paul died, we built a three-year tour that was going to celebrate his repertoire. But then the pandemic cut that tour short. I think we got one year out before the pandemic shut us down. Programming is a skillset; you have to practice it, you have to learn what works and what doesn't. One of the best pieces of advice I got when I first started was from a gentleman who runs a theater down in Wilmington and he said, "Don't just watch the work — watch your audience watch the work." And that stuck with me. How audiences change year to year, how they change regionally or internationally. You have to put your face right up to it. That’s the most logical place to start.

It's interesting how some pieces of art are made in a moment in time, they respond to that time and they feel timely and then decades past, even a century can pass, and the same piece of art is still relevant. Beauty can be relevant, joy can be relevant, terror can be relevant, political commentary can be relevant.

2 Esplanade by Paul Taylor Shawn Lesniak and Jada Pearman Photo by Luke J Merlino — Shawn Lesniak and Jada Pearman in Paul Taylor's "Esplanade." Photo: Luke J. Merlino

For the three pieces that will be performed in Detroit, what is it like for you to watch people in the audience during those works?

Oh, it's great. So one of the things that's interesting about “Esplanade” — well, all three because “Company B” has this too — is there are five movements and the second movement is very dark. You have this beautiful 10-minute opening. It's joyful, it's communal. It's just like a group of friends just running, skipping and walking together. And it's so easy to take in. And the second section starts and it's very dimly lit and no one touches, spoiler alert. And I've noticed pretty consistently around the world, within I'd say 20 seconds of the second section starting, audiences literally lean forward. There's something about the lighting and the choreography and what they've just seen before, and the second section starts and people are like, "I thought I knew what was going on.”

With “Company B,” we get a lot of singing along because it's the Andrews Sisters. Nostalgia's a powerful thing. So sometimes they're not looking at the stage. They're looking to their husband or their wife or their friends like, "Do you remember?" The Detroit audience is getting greatest hits. I mean, this is a blockbuster program and “Brandenburgs” has never been seen in Detroit. We first performed here in 1965 and it's our 10th time here and “Brandenburgs” has never been seen here. And then “Company B” and “Esplanade” were last done in 1994.

What’s it like to see Paul now in “Dancemaker” knowing you’re in the role he was in?

We knew Paul at the end of his life; it’s a very precious and special moment to be with someone at the end. Their facilities are different, their cognition is different, their mobility is different. It's different than Paul in “Dancemaker,” different from the videos of him creating work in the 1960s. And there weren't these deep philosophical conversations with him. So I say all that because I connect with him more in his writings and in the videos of him when he was younger. I learned a lot of things from working with him, but there are just as many, if not more lessons, in reading his writing and watching these videos and documentaries of him.

The personality, the quirks, how he makes things, things that he says that I'm like, "That tracks." He has a lot of pearls in there that I'm like, "You were right." There's still a surreal element to it, even though I believe I'm in the right place and in the right position and doing work that I feel really passionate about. I didn't know the Paul in “Dancemaker.” Different generations. I knew the Paul at the end, so it's more exciting for me to see that part of him. And frankly, even with newer dancers who come in, who didn't work with him at all, we have a lot of conversations right now. They're like, "We want to watch the old videos."

My generation also didn't have social media, we didn't have YouTube, we didn't have these devices. I remember having to drive 45 minutes to the one record store that had the LGBTQ+ newspaper from Chicago and then being secretive about it. We were coming out of the AIDS crisis. When Matthew Shepard died, I remember that was terrifying.
— Michael Novak

What’s something that you catch yourself doing that reminds you of Paul?

He was really good at like, “Oh, shucks. I tried it. It didn't really work out.” In the first couple of years I was so terrified of making a mistake. You want to do a good job, but if something doesn't happen, learn the lesson and shrug it off as best you can and go to the next thing. There were moments in choreography with “Esplanade,” as an example. There was a moment in the fourth movement of “Esplanade” that Paul was playing with until the end. Every rehearsal, he'd run the fourth movement and he couldn't figure out why this moment wasn't working. And as a dancer, it was very frustrating because you're like, "I keep doing what you're telling me to do. Is it me? Is it the step? Is it our space?" You're trying to help. We never got it right and as a dancer, I was always frustrated about it. Now I'm on the outside and I'm launching it and I see the exact same moment and there's something about it that's off. And I don't bring it up to the company because I'm trying to watch it enough to figure out, because sometimes it doesn't catch my eye and I don't know why. Other times it does.

I remember at the end watching him watch us — this goes back to watching your audience watch the work — and I always felt like when he watched us dance, sometimes it wasn't to give us notes. It was almost like he was reflecting. It was like a slideshow. The people he danced with when he created the piece, he was just kind of letting it wash over him. And it wasn't about adjudicating us or criticizing us. It was just letting the art do the job. And there's certainly days in rehearsal where I come in or performances where there's a lot going on in my workday and sometimes I just come in, I sit down and the art recharges me and I only have like one or two notes.

It's usually like a hair note or like, “Your shoes don't match. We need to make sure that they're like exactly the right color,” and dancers are like, "That's it? In a 30-minute piece, you're talking about my French twist? Nothing about my movement? I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. Your bobby pin was a bit too big, though." But he was the same. He'd watch us dance and he'd come up on stage and he's like, "Your belt buckle’s twisted." And you're like, “With all that's happening, how is that the note?”

Looking back, who or what made you believe that you should still pursue dance even when you felt like it wasn’t for boys?

My theater directors at my high school, and then the dance school I studied at. They were very encouraging and supportive. They helped drown the noise out. They were like, “If you want this, this is available to you.”

What's your earliest memory of a piece that you performed that made you feel like you were bigger than you felt as a kid?

We did a tap number; it was a competition school. We did a tap number to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and we had cowboy hats on. I just remember it being the right piece at the right time and I was like, "Oh, this is coming naturally.” That was the first time that I was like, “I can own this.” And then I did “West Side Story” my senior year in high school. I was cast as “Dream Tony,” which has less speaking, which was good. For me, lines were hard, but music was fine. But “West Side Story,” I fell in love with it and I was like, “I think I could do this.” But wanting to do something and being good at it and then finding your home in an industry is a whole other thing.

Novak 1318x1920 — Michael Novak. Photo: Jordan Matter

It took you longer than most dancers to become a professional dancer, right?

Yeah. I got into the company in 2010, so I was 27 when I joined Paul Taylor, and that was my first full-time dance job with benefits where I only had one job. Everything before that, I had at least three jobs. So thinking about graduating high school at 18 and then 27, it's a big window of life. All of which I'll add helped and are valuable things that certainly helped me get into the company and embody the work.

During this visit, you taught a dance class at Wayne State University. What’s it like to be a mentor?

One of the greatest parts of my job is watching a dancer have an aha moment or have a breakthrough. Because dancers work and work and work and they hone things, and sometimes there is this plateau where you're kind of coasting and then something happens, sometimes it's life, sometimes it's the right role.

There's so many different dance styles out there where people feel home. So when you see someone who's like, "Is this my home? "And you're like, "Come on over. Let's show you the landscape,” it means a lot.

What advice might you give somebody who felt like you did when you were a young gay boy who wasn’t sure about pursuing a career in dance?

The notion of chosen family is something I think about a lot. Finding your community that sees you as you, it may take time, but then all of a sudden you become 40 or 50 or 60 and that window's so short relative to your life.

My generation also didn't have social media, we didn't have YouTube, we didn't have these devices. I remember having to drive 45 minutes to the one record store that had the LGBTQ+ newspaper from Chicago and then being secretive about it. We were coming out of the AIDS crisis. When Matthew Shepard died, I remember that was terrifying.

I've been thinking a lot of queer joy recently and how accessible that is and how grateful I am that there are collaborators in our field who lean into that. There can be beautiful things in life to celebrate. So, I'm very hopeful and grateful that this generation has different types of burdens relative to what we went through, and it feels like we've continued to move the needle further and further and further into a more equitable world, with still a lot of work to do.