Mark Morris Dance Group at Tanglewood
Morris Serves World Class Dance
By: Ken Ross - Jun 28, 2010
Mark Morris has terrific taste in music. What does this have to do with his choreography? Everything. Morris is like a world-class chef. Before he even starts cooking, he makes sure he has the absolute best ingredients available. Then, Morris crafts a delectable work of art custom made to fit ethereal music that stirs your soul.
That was certainly the case Sunday night when the Mark Morris Dance Group performed in the jewel-box perfect Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. (The group will perform the same program Monday at 8 p.m. at Tanglewood.) Each piece of music would have been delightful on its own. Instead, Morris used the music to build a solid foundation for four often playful, visually stunning dances.
The program included the world premier of “The Muir,” a dance set to German folk songs arranged by Ludwig van Beethoven. The pastoral music fit right in at Tanglewood. So did the delightful dancing. “The Muir” features three men and three women. The women were dressed in ball-like gowns with velvet tops that would look right at home waltzing in Vienna. “The Muir” is not one of Morris greatest works. Then again, Morris has set the bar pretty high since he’s one of the greatest choreographers working today.
“The Muir” basically showcases the playful interaction between the men and women, often one on one. Or sometimes, the dance features two men vying for the attention of one woman. One dancer in particular, the woman in the red evening gown (Laurel Lynch, I believe, although it could have been Amber Star Merkens, but my old eyes are pretty sure it was Lynch), had a commanding presence and it was easy to understand why several men were vying for her on stage. Lynch moved with a powerful gracefulness which was most evident in her upper body. In fact, I was struck by how muscular many of female dancers are in the group.
But what really struck me was there were really no low points throughout the evening. At first, I thought the first piece, “Mosaic and United,” was a bit too much off kilter. The dated, neon-colored costumes were also a bit distracting. But as the dance progressed, I realized it simplytook me a little while to get in tune with Morris’ dance vocabulary. I’ve seen Morris’ group many times over the years. But he definitely has a distinct style that takes time to get accustomed to again. It’s like listening to a foreign language you learned a long time ago. At first, nothing seems to make sense. Then slowly, things start to fall in place. At least that’s what I’ve heard. My German and Italian are laughably bad.
The other reason “Mosaic and United” felt off kilter is because the music by Henry Cowell has a dissonant sound. That’s why about half way through, after the music started to sound familiar, Morris dancing also started to pop into place in my mind.
There were no such problems with the group’s second piece, “Sang Froid.” Set to the solo piano music of Frederic Chopin, the dancers dressed in black seemed to spring in the air like the hammers in a piano in time to the music, as a fellow theater goer perfectly pointed out to me after the show. The fluid dancing was perfectly synchronized to the music.
This piece was also the first one of the evening where I found my mind trying to figure out the plot of “Sang Froid.” Like many modern dances, on a literal level, there’s no plot for the dance. Sure, at certain moments, the dancers try to run one by one past three dancers who stop some of them, but don’t stop others. What does it mean? That’s a question I often hear from people frustrated by modern dance. They want to know what the dance means. Our brains seem to be hard wired to figure out what something means. Everything has to mean something, we think. Well, what if the dance is simply about dancers dancing to the music? That might sound silly. But in the case of Mark Morris, that’s often simply the case.
That was especially true in the last piece, “Grand Duo,” one of Morris’ more well known works. The large ensemble piece ends with the dancers forming a large circle. They run around in a circle in time to the music. They split off into two smaller circles, then come back together, often slapping their thighs as they stand with their legs spread in a wrestling-like stance. And like the other three dances, the dancers danced perfectly in time to Lou Harrison’s powerful, primitive sounding music. What does it mean? More great music equals more great dancing. Period.
Ken Ross has been writing professionally about dance since 1998. He lives in Western Massachusetts.