Morris's Mixed Bag
Sun Herald
Sunday January 12, 2003
Despite clever choreography, this New York dance group didn't tug the heart strings for Julie Huffer.
What: Mark Morris Dance Group.
Where: Parade Theatre, NIDA.
When: Until January 15. Tickets$35 to $85. Bookings92664826.
Rating: 6/10.
HAILED by some as ``heir to the Balanchine spirit", American choreographer Mark Morris has achieved towering professional status and critical acclaim.
He is reportedly the only choreographer to own a multi-million-dollar studio in New York and his company's success after 22 years is testimony to his creative genius.
With this in mind, I had hoped to be dazzled, excited and left breathless by the group's long-awaited and much anticipated performance last week as part of the Sydney Festival.
But the evening left me flat, the choreography in most parts cleverly constructed, yet ultimately unfulfilling.
The program of contrasting abstract works got off to a bad start. Fifteen minutes after the curtain should have gone up at NIDA's Parade Theatre, Sydney Festival director Brett Sheehy announced that the first item, Resurrection, was to be cut from the program because two of the dancers had been injured during the afternoon rehearsals.
The work, commissioned by the Boston Pops Orchestra and set to Richard Rodgers'Slaughter On Tenth Avenue, could quite possibly have launched the program in upbeat mode.
Instead, we were plunged straight into Grand Duo, set to sombre tones on violin and piano (Morris travels with his own musical ensemble and the group enjoys the luxury of performing only to live music).
Here, movement often went against the grain, dancers unnaturally thrusting the same arms as legs forward, or keeping their heads down while lifting their upper bodies.
The 14 dancers of varying shapes and sizes created a powerful presence as they flawlessly performed the well-rehearsed choreography, which reminded me of a kind of tribal warrior dance, devouring the stage with clean-cut, angular moves. But music and movement struggled to lift the mood.
Light came after interval with Foursome, a somewhat comical arrangement for blokes, including Morris, whose obvious physical differences partly accounted for some of its humour.
Subtle jokes were created by juxtaposing spacial relationships, dividing and multiplying rhythms and subverting gestures into part or wholly abstracted forms. But I'm sure many people would have found it odd watching the 46-year-old choreographer clad in shorts, sandals and green socks performing fairly ambiguous pedestrian movements with his motley crew.
The final work, V, was welcomed with its visual and musical splendour. In floating electric-blue silk tops and pants, the dancers soared through space like birds in a brilliant display of athleticism, melding seamlessly through solos, duets, trios and group formations.
The sense of aloofness that had characterised much of the program lifted briefly when the dancers allowed their faces to soften or made eye contact with the audience and, for the first time, they really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
V was created just before September 11. Its subsequent dedication to the City of New York set an expectation that I was going to be moved by this piece. It was extremely beautiful in parts, yet it remained a sophisticated exercise in the cerebral that didn't arouse my emotions.
© 2003 Sun Herald
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