Mark Morris' Acis and Galatea

Douglas Williams (Polyphemus) with Spencer Ramirez, Lauren Grant, and Noah Vinson. Photo: Richard Termine

Mark Morris is among the few modern choreographers at this moment who can put together—direct and choreograph—a dance-driven, full-length opera. His new production of Handel's Acis and Galatea was performed as part of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival at the Koch Theater last week. It is telling, and fitting, that Morris is as at home in this music festival as anywhere else. The music which provides the structure, however, is at times fallible. The opera itself is largely light, bubbly, sometimes silly, with jaunty rhythms and repeating lyrics, and a trenchant, somber aria by Galatea, mourning Acis, prior to a festive finale. It's also sometimes irritating, like a pop music station where you hear a clunker every now and then. It might explain why it's not as commonly performed as other Handel compositions.

The pre-dance overture however, with a toe-tapping tempo, is an immediate reminder of the joys of hearing well-played music, live. Nicholas McGegan conducts the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale with finesse and verve. (It is clear that the orchestra takes things seriously from the program's list of instruments and their provenances; some date back to the 17th century.) The 18 dancers sweep on and off in arcs, ebbing and flowing, spelling out some of the shapes that accumulate to create a selected syntax specific to this work, as Morris does with each dance he creates. Draped tree branch hands, or arms straight, palms spread, as a dancer rushes upstage. A woman is lifted and wafted back to earth, one arm held higher than the other. A couple echoes one another's side leg lifts, with the man peeling backward. The endless repetition of musical phrases means a mirroring of the companion dance phrases, providing ample views and reviews.

The singers, pure and agile in voice, were integrated into the movement, sometimes more successfully than others. Soprano Yulia Van Doren (Galatea) moved more naturally than her paramour, Acis (tenor Thomas Cooley), who might have benefitted from more movement training, particularly in simply running across the stage. Tenor Isaiah Bell (Damon) sang with ringing clarity and youthful brio. But it was Douglas Williams who grabbed the spotlight as bad-boy Polyphemus, rejected by Acis. In a snarling solo, he groped each dancer as they passed by him with increasing reluctance, as if on a conveyor belt. This from a choreographer who once famously yelled "No more rape!" at a performance of Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs. But a cluster of dancers forms a chair for Polyphemus, who is in turn groped by them—turnabout is fair play. In the end, he throws a boulder (appropriately, the rock-solid Maile Okamura, held aloft by two men) to strike dead Acis, whom Galatea resurrects as a flowing, life-giving stream.

A joyous finale. Photo: Richard Termine

Adrienne Lobel created vivid, expressionistic painted drops; one psych evokes a mountainous grove, another more rigid geometric forms, and a mid-stage drop features cut-out portals. When they are all lowered in place, the effect is visual cacophony. The stage is covered with a garish green marley—more tennis court than grass—whose effect was heightened by Michael Chybowski's lighting. Isaac Mizrahi designed wonderful floor-length chiffon, floral camo print dresses for the women and skirts for the men; the singers wore individual designs in varying plant hues.  

Morris is masterful at creating lilting, organic movement phrases that present a bright, philanthropic view of love and life. His dancers glow and gaze with affection at one another, and at the singers. There are also humorous sardonic scenes, such as when some of the women gang up with Galatea and pummel Polyphemus. Rita Donahue leads a memorable scene comprising a rapid series of strident gestures—hands stab the air, arms flail as if rowing followed by a violent stomp, a phrase which elicited giggles time and again. In another section, to a militaristic march, Laurel Lynch, carriage upright, sweeps her bent leg in an arc and straightens her limbs rigidly. In a visual non sequitur, Polyphemus lies on the ground and circles his ankles like a dancer warming up. The movements can get literal—to the phrase "ample strides," several dancers lift and vault another who plants her flexed feet defiantly. For a playful choreographer such as Morris, even if the results can be somewhat obvious, such visual pictures are priceless gifts in an oeuvre filled with days worth of non-narrative choreography. 

Integrating opera singers and dancers onstage is, of course, nothing new. (Once in a blue moon, someone like Simon Keenlyside, who is an impressively fleet physical presence, comes along to shift the paradigm.) It's one way Morris has approached opera—he also worked this way with the Met's Orfeo and Eurydice a few years ago. He has also placed singers in the pit and given the lead roles to dancers, as with his well-loved Dido and Aeneas. As long as Morris continues to have opportunities to do one, the other, or yet something else, productions of even less sturdy scores are welcome.

Lincoln Center Diminishes Dance This Summer

New York is so dance rich that it becomes a bit of a perverse sport to complain about the plethora. But in a twist, Lincoln Center's indoor summer festivals are ditching dance this year.

But first, we're on the eve of New York City Ballet's spring season, and two weeks hence, ABT's, which take us halfway through July. That's an insane amount of the finest repertory in the history of feet, danced by the finest feet in the history of dirt. 

ABT ends in July, and Lincoln Center Festival begins. Right after that, in August, Mostly Mozart takes over Lincoln Center.

This year, however, looks like I've got many free summer nights after ABT since neither the LCF nor Mostly Mozart is presenting any dance. 

LCF used to heavily feature dance. In 2006 alone, there was a mini-festival of Israeli dance with Batsheva, Yasmeen Godder, and Emanuel Gat, plus San Francisco Ballet with three programs including Mark Morris' Sylvia, STREB, Saburo Teshigawara, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane. In 2010, the Mariinsky Ballet visited, and the festival hosted the clever Merce Fair.

Sure, LCF is further cultivating cross-genre performance, where the lines blur between music, theater, and everything else. One show, Murmurs, features the movement theater (or nouveau cirque) of Aurelie Thiérrée and Victoria Thiérrée Chaplin, but it is not dance. What happened?

Plus, Mark Morris has waved the baton in recent Mostly Mozart seasons, and usually brings one of his splendid full-length works, such as L'Allegro, or the sublime Mozart Dances, which premiered in that halcyon 2006 season. This year—nada. 

Lincoln Center Out of Doors just announced the season's lineup. Huzzah—it includes the companies of Mark Dendy, Kyle Abraham, and John Heginbotham.

So, dance mavens, more nights watching baseball this year. Now I've really gotta roots for the Mets. Maybe the timing is providential, because they need my support.

A Star (Merkens) Shadowing a Star

There is only one Mark Morris, for better or worse. Even though he hasn't figured out how to subdivide or clone himself, he managed to wear several hats during the Mostly Mozart run of his Dido and Aeneas at the Rose Theater (through tonight). First and foremost, he is choreographer of this gem of a production, one that remains an outstanding work in his oeuvre after 23 years. Second, he is the conductor, in the orchestra pit having a jolly old time, right across from the powerhouse mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe (her voice raises the roof), and other crack singers. Third, and somewhat vexing, if unavoidable, his ghost lives onstage in the dual roles of Dido and the Sorceress, now danced by Amber Star Merkens.

It's not that Merkens is subpar. She's engrossing, emotionally complex, with a whiff of the tragic. As much as I've admired her in her 11 years with Mark Morris Dance Group, she has remained unknowable, unlike so many of the company's members whose personalities have become as familiar as old slippers. That mystery has been part of her trademark. She is physically commanding, with sure, clean lines, but more likely than not bearing a placid facial expression evocative of the Mona Lisa. She communicates primarily with the rest of her body, reserving for herself whatever psychological underpinnings roil beneath the surface.

Mark Morris is one of those performers whose magnetism is a force of nature. Whatever he's performed in, he'd be the one to draw the eye. He has innate technical skills—notably his sense of balance and centering—to make any dancer jealous. But beyond his technique, his presence has always been undeniable, his sheer force or personality combined with a healthy dose of camp and humor. As Dido/the Sorceress, these traits seemed to multiply exponentially, intoxicating us in the audience along with the delightful Purcell score and the dramatics unfolding onstage via the mimetic, rhythmic movement. It will never be possible to strike the memory of Morris in these roles, alongside Guillermo Resto as Aeneas, nor should it be. It just isn't perfectly fair to the dancers who followed in these roles. (Incidentally, I fondly recall Bradon McDonald's interpretation of the roles; he perhaps came closest to Mark's exuberance, if with even more ferocity.)  

Today's Dido remains engaging in different ways. Domingo Estrada Jr. is a strapping, sweet-natured Aeneas, and Maile Okamura and Rita Donahue are Dido's smart-moving right-hand women. Merkens switches handily between the stricken, midas-nailed Dido and the sinister Sorceress in part by unpinning her hair, which, when draped over her face, looks vaguely like Morris' did back when, but also with her unironic thrill in being evil. She'll never be Mark—no one will—but we take pleasure in her subtlety and with what she chooses to share of her profound gifts.

Mark Morris Dance Group at Mostly Mozart, 8/25/11

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Mark Morris Dance Group at Mostly Mozart with Renard and Socrates.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/mark-morris-dance-group-at-mostly-mozart/1586/

"Renard." Photo by Stephanie Berger.

Watching Mark Morris Dance Group last week at Rose Theater, an annual highlight of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, I was suddenly aware of the absence of many of the company’s longtime members who have retired in the last year or so. At any moment, I expected David Leventhal, Julie Worden, Bradon McDonald, June Omura, and Joe Bowie to bound onstage as they had for ages, joining the familiar faces of sophomore and freshman dancers that now cheerily peopled the stage. Of course the company is pretty stable as they go, with constant minor flux, but it does seem to have undergone a wave of generational change recently.

Mark Morris—Keys to the Family Car, 8/21/09

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Mark Morris Dance Group at Mostly Mozart, Rose Theater.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/mark-morris%E2%80%94keys-to-the-family-car/745/

When you first got your driver’s license, did you take your parents’ car out? Perhaps tentatively at first, and then with more confidence each time? And yet, it was always your parents’ car, and always would be, but you got used to it, and maybe they got used to the idea of you in it. Well Mark Morris has had the proverbial keys to the parents’ car—Lincoln Center—for several years now. Even so, given his puckish nature, he’ll always seem like the teenager in the Buick Roadmaster. And that’s not a bad thing.

Lincoln Center, where Mark Morris Dance Group has performed regularly in recent years—with more frequency than even BAM, near his headquarters—dominates Manhattan’s culturescape in the genres of classical ballet, music and opera. Morris is no neophyte, with his company nearly 30 (!) years old. His modern style is straightforward, rhythmically attentive, often joyous. And yet he structures his dances with the great care of a classicist, from the full-length works to the shorter ones. It’s earthbound and exalted all at once.

Samoan Requiem, 8/13/08

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Lemi Ponifasio’s Requiem

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/samoan-requiem/604/

What happens when unfamiliar cultural elements are set within an all-too familiar framework? The result can be a kind of cultural slide show where the structure takes over and the content becomes secondary, as with Lemi Ponifasio’s Requiem. The director says Mozart’s same-titled work inspired him, yet it is not part of his theater piece, presented in the Rose Theater by Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

This is not the only source of disconnect about Requiem, originally created for the 2006 New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. For this work about loss – cultural, environmental, or otherwise – Ponifasio pieced together songs, chants and rituals from his native Samoa, where he is a high chief. The program contained a libretto with the text, but apart from that, there was little onstage to give the audience some sort of grip on the various acts’ meanings. So the martial arts arm gestures, thigh slaps, shuffling gaits, and songs became more decorative and superficial than meaningful.

And yet the structure places it firmly within the anthology of contemporary performance art created recently in either Europe or the US and presented at venues such as Lincoln Center. It frequently evokes Robert Wilson’s style, either by chance or intent – the glacial pace of movement, the supreme importance of the low or silhouetted lighting (by Helen Todd), the use of repetition, the highly formal costumes. Perhaps it helps to be unfamiliar with Wilson’s work, but try that in this day and age.