Bodies in Motion

"See the music, hear the dance." These words, attributed to choreographer George Balanchine, encapsulate what the Mark Morris Dance Group brings to the Lensic on Tuesday, in its first Santa Fe performance in over a decade.

Founded by renowned dancer and choreographer Mark Morris in 1980, the eponymous dance troupe is distinguished from other dance companies of today in that it rehearses and performs exclusively to live music, all the while adhering to a clear worldview.

In a video interview by the UC Berkeley-based Cal Performances, Morris reminisces about growing up in Seattle "before the advent of the word 'multicultural'" and being heavily influenced by Eastern culture. Proud of the "family tree" that he is now a part of, he's swift to clarify that it didn't start with him, but rather "the West looking East, and it starts way before what we call 'musical minimalism.'"

Because live instrumentation is such an integral part of the group's identity, there is an inherent musicality to everything they do.

The necessity of the freshness and unreliability of live music is echoed by the music director of the dance group, Colin Fowler.

"It's difficult to do, it's definitely more expensive to do, but I think first and foremost it actually makes the dancers better because it creates a sense of performance before the audience is even in the room," Fowler tells SFR. "It creates a more collaborative feeling that I think elevates everyone's performances, both the dancers and the musicians."

Out of the approximately 150 works that Morris has created, the three that are showcased in the performance at the Lensic are "Pacific," "The" and "Festival Dance."

"Pacific," Fowler notes, was originally created by Morris for the San Francisco Ballet in 1995, and it is the first piece that Morris reimagined from classical ballet to fit his dance group's signature fusion style. Morris adapted it for the dance group and premiered the new piece at George Mason University in February of this year.

The piece, which is written for nine dancers, is set to the third and fourth movements of Lou Harrison's "Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano." It features very strong, held arm placement that is juxtaposed by moments of fluidity in the lower body. This is further emphasized by the fitted costuming on the upper body giving way to flowy, watercolor skirting.

"The" is the dance group's newest work. It premiered on June 25 of this year at the Tanglewood Music Center in honor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 75th anniversary. It showcases 16 dancers in sheer, fluttering pastels and earth tones, and is set to Max Reger's arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major." In contrast to "Pacific," "The" is more lighthearted and whimsical. It is both familiar and new in that it reinvents a baroque standard written for orchestra, and male-female pas de deux, into a four-hand piano feature that incorporates not only the traditional duet pairings, but male-male and female-female as well.

The program ends with "Festival Dance," set to Johann Nepomuk Hummel's "Piano Trio No. 5 in E Major." "Festival Dance" is distinct from the other pieces in that it incorporates elements of folk dance in addition to ballet and modern dance. Unlike the preceding "The," it is constructed primarily around male-female symbiosis. The minimalist costuming of the work allows the eye to focus on the exquisite lines created by the choreography as the dancers melt into one another and then jubilantly spring free.

Although seeing music and hearing dance may sound like nothing more than a cleverly worded oxymoron, the Mark Morris Dance Group fully embodies Balanchine's phrase in a performance that intertwines music and dance, sight and sound, into a style of dance that is uniquely its own.

Mark Morris Dance Group
7:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 27. $27-$100
The Lensic Performing Arts Center
211 W San Francisco St.,
988-1234

Santa Fe Reporter