" ... a controlled but powerful exuberance"

July 27, 2005 performance, reviewed by Connell McGrath

The choreography of Mark Morris has been called "at once unwieldy and graceful, sacred and profane, reverent and repellent" (Maura Keefe) and it is in part the friction between these characteristics of his work that keep his audiences fascinated. He is also anti-romantic, and perhaps the most gifted contemporary choreographer at expressing music through movement. The Mark Morris Dance Group returned to Jacob's Pillow to sold-out audiences and wide acclaim. This is their eighteenth consecutive year of performing at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.

The program starts with a 2004 work called Rock of Ages set to Franz Schubert's Piano Trio in E flat, Adagio. This is a simple, peaceful work that largely draws on ballet vernacular. It is dreamy and soothing, and matches the Schubert music beautifully. It's simplicity and it's seeming lack of having anything to prove lend it a rare humility. As is typical of Morris's choreography, the roles in this piece are interchangeable between male and female dancers. He sets the dance on four dancers, and each of the six performances have different dancers in the roles. Some performances are mostly male, some all-female, with all interim variations. He continues to choreograph work that cannot be characterized as romantic, which is to his credit. The music was performed live by Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center: Elizabeth Mahler on violin, Semiramis CS Costa on cello, Kenneth Osowski on piano.

Next is All Fours (2003) set to Béla Bartók's challenging at times dissonant String Quartet No. 4. This is a dance in five movements, following the movements of the Bartok work. Music was performed by The New Fromm Players: Joel Pargman, violin, Elizabeth Mahler, violin, Mark Berger, viola, Semiramis CS Costa, cello. Some of the movements of this piece seemed particularly challenging to choreograph. This piece was characterized by archetypal gestures such as one dancer placing his or her hand over the mouth of another, prayer gestures, hands clasped behind back. These gestures are archetypal in that they seem to symbolize something universal, however the work does not imply any clear assignment of meaning. Morris has the dancers from the next movement come on stage before the end of the previous movement is completed. This gives a curious and interesting sense of "barging in" as well as an ingenious continuity between the movements.

After intermission, the group presented the trivial and silly The "Tamil Film Songs in Stereo" Pas de Deux (1983), set to a scratchy cassette that Morris picked up in India. The dance is a satirical duet that makes fun of the self-importance and vanity of the ballet and modern dance worlds. It is a one-joke piece, we get the joke quickly and he keeps it mercifully short. It is most interesting in relation to the more serious work that precedes and follows it; as if Morris means to caution us not to take the work too seriously.

The evening ends with one of Mark Morris Dance Group's signature pieces, Grand Duo (1993) that he made in collaboration with composer Lou Harrison. Harrison's music was performed by Tomoko Katsura on violin and Vadim Serebryany on piano and the work was danced by (almost) the full company. Certainly, the word masterpiece has been overused even in relation to Mark Morris. However, Grand Duo undoubtedly deserves the title. It is a piece that borrows from a variety of dance vernaculars, ballet to modern to folk dance. It has a strong feeling of ritual and evokes most strongly a controlled but powerful exuberance. Morris excels here in using the entire stage and getting so much interesting movement going on that the audience thrilled and exhilarated.

One of the greatest gestures of appreciation that a Jacob's Pillow audience can confer on a performing company is how long the audience stays to applaud. A sad fact is that many audience members will quickly race from the theater to get to their cars and get out of the parking lot—I suppose—before anyone else. On review night of The Mark Morris Dance Group, I noticed no early exits by audience members—not one. People stayed and clapped and cheered.

Mark Morris Dance Group
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