Proving once again who is the hottest ticket in dance today, Mark Morris Dance Group stunned the sold-out audience last night in its first performance at the Moore Theater.
Part stylist and part illusionist, Morris freely incorporates the classic and the avant-garde, the elegant and the awkward, to present an eclectic movement style of juxtapositions which speaks about a similar mix in life.
In "Lucky Charms," a cross between chorus line pizzazz and sobering sculptural escapades, dancers donned in vibrant sequins flash jazz hands in kick formations and flittering games of hide-and-seek.
With a flip in lights, Morris, always playful provocateur, commands an unexpected recognition of weight. Bouncy bodies assume languid poses until barefoot brigades spontaneously burst from the wings pensive no more. Arms and heads take on the properties of various instruments in an incredible sight of musical visualization to finish in high voltage screams.
A last minute substitution, "Beautiful Day" uses forms in duet to expose the geometric structure of music by J. S. Bach. In the absence of sets, the dance is all about the contour of the body fused to the shape of the music. The figures move on complex lines in toned unitards through magnetic fields to a light dinning bell.
With the approachability of folk dance, "The Office" plays a skewed game of musical chairs where instead of one less chair with every hesitation of music there is one less dancer. In the streetwear of local secretaries, the co-workers walk and skip with a casualness that gives the impression that any viewer could join in if the impulse took him.
As the circle tightens with the loss of beloved friends, the sense of union grows to reveal the intricacy of rhythmic patterns. Morris' presence adds a further dimension as he chases, stomps, and holds hands with unabashed ease.
The lilt of his head and the pounding of his footwork demand questions of what really happens behind closed corporate doors.
With no holds barred humor and unflappable flamboyance in a post-performance question and answer session, Morris said "at 15 I was a choreographer" and now "at 39, a despot."
Indeed the prodigious talent continues to write his own rules and his way into the history books as one of the finest choreographers of his generation.
Tickets for tonight's final performance of Mark Morris Dance Group are available at the Hopkins Center box office for $12.50 (Dartmouth students) and $20.50 (general admission). Spot-light discussion by the choreographer to follow.
