I’m going to quote verbatim from a publicist for today’s dRD because — well, you’ll see:

“I get it when people say they don’t like modern dance. All art is an acquired taste, and some modern dance is so experimental, so out-there, that it’s really hard to understand. Paul Taylor isn’t like that. His pieces are often beautiful to watch with laugh-out-loud moments of humor. His genius has a universal appeal because it feels familiar while managing to surprise us at the same time. If you’ve ever felt joy in watching kids run around a playground or birds in flight or maybe you’ve taken dance and have a technical understanding … whatever you’ve seen in the world that gives you an appreciation of the joy of motion—that’s what you’ll get in a Paul Taylor dance.”

That’s from Paul Bilyeu, senior communications director for the Straz Center, where the Taylor company is performing tonight. The words are from the Center’s blog, which reveals that not only did Bilyeu consider a career as a dancer himself (until it became clear that it meant, um, performing in public), he was once the publicist for theater and dance programming at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where he got to see, meet and write about some of the greatest dancers and choreographers of all time, from the Bolshoi Ballet to Twyla Tharp to, of course, the late Paul Taylor. So he knows whereof he speaks. (Read the whole blog post here.)

I can only add: Yes! If you’ve never seen this company, go! And if you have seen them, well why don’t you have tickets already?

7:30 p.m., Morsani Hall at the Straz Center, Tampa, 813-229-STAR, strazcenter.org.