Mark Morris Excels With Light Touch
The Mark Morris Dance Group Tuesday, Oct. 20, Beasley Coliseum
A crowd of more than a thousand people, including impressive numbers from Spokane and Lewiston, nearly filled Beasley Coliseum Tuesday night to watch Mark Morris lead his dance company through a quintessential Mark Morris program.
He’s a choreographer who has honed parody to a fine art. Indeed, of the four pieces on the program, only one, “Grand Duo,” presented a serious facade, and even in that moments of frivolity leaked through.
Morris is the master of playfulness. He makes fun of taking music too seriously, although he has a reputation for possessing great musicality. He pokes fun at those who divide the world strictly down gender lines and those who religiously practice decorum.
In his first performance ever in the Inland Northwest, Morris programmed the evening with a focus on humor. He staged two pieces from 1993, “A Spell” and “Grand Duo,” and a parody from 1994, “The Office,” and he reached to the early 1980s for a complicated rhythmic piece, “Canonic 3/4 Studies.”
Of the repertoire, the crowd greeted “A Spell” the most enthusiastically. I’ve seen this piece performed at Meany Hall in Seattle, and the crowd there responded identically.
And why not? Who can resist laughing at Mark Morris making fun of himself. For he spends the length of the dance prancing barefoot about the stage in a hot pink tunic with little wings attached to his back.
He’s Cupid. And he is about the business of love, or at least getting a couple of reluctant people together.
Morris flits about, shoving the dancing couple together, fussing, posing and generally having a good time.
Where “A Spell” is a dance with few complications, “The Office” is a parody with serious content. Save for the name of the piece, one would assume this dance is about the rigidity of a school classroom, where the goal is training any fun out of the students.
The dancers, costumed as schoolgirls and adolescent boys, assemble in a straight row of chairs. Soon, fun breaks out all over the stage.
They’re dancing and cavorting and become lost in the moment, just enjoying the movement and rhythm.
Then a women, severe in a gray suit with a clipboard, strides onto the stage. All movement stops, and one boy is marched off the stage as though to the principal’s office.
The dancers resume their places in the chairs. But again, frivolity overcomes them, and the scene is repeated until only one dancer remains on stage, alone to sit in a chair.
Thick with symbolism, “The Office” exhibits one of Morris’ strengths: the ability to layer his dances so they reach out and speak to the audience on several levels, funny on the surface, but underneath serious enough that you walk away still thinking about it.
The Mark Morris Dance Group travels with several musicians, and to see dance performed to live music adds an intimacy and authenticity to the production. Some of the music, discordant and with unusual rhythms, was so complex that at times the attention of the audience turned to the small group of musicians just offstage.
Morris uses the live music to his best advantage. The program finale, “Grand Duo,” incorporates a range of music and dance from polkas and rounds to elements of African and Eastern European dance.
I have seen the bulk of this program performed by Morris in Seattle, and it’s interesting to see the dances in a different venue. It’s also a reminder that good art can be seen repeatedly, and each time you come away with a deeper understanding of what the artist is attempting.
And, in this case, it reminded me how talented Morris is both as a dancer and even more so as a choreographer. One can only hope this won’t be his last appearance in the Inland Northwest.