(Mark) Morris Dancing

My experience with dance performance was, perhaps like many of you, limited to the tradition of the Nutcracker every Christmas. It was also a tradition of mine to sleep through most of it, waking up only for the Arabian dancers. However, I assure you I had no trouble staying awake through every minute of the Mark Morris Dance Group, who appeared last weekend at the Shubert Theater in Boston.

The opening number, "Sang-Froid," featured dancers in plain black pants and t-shirts and the music of Frederic Chopin. The moves seemed so natural, seemed to fit the music so well, that I wondered why I hadn't seen those exact moves in my mind every time I heard that music before. Sometimes the movements appeared amateur, like someone thrashing around in his room with windows and doors shut against prying eyes. But there is no denying their skill, as they leapt and spun across the stage. The choreography was a study in patterns, almost mathematical in its precision. Morris would take an initial move and repeat it several times over with tiny variations, like a fugue of motion.

In "Bedtime" a soloist danced languorously around the scenery fashioned from six other company members. Once again Morris created patterns with a movement running from one end of a block of dancers to the other. The section based on Schubert's "Erlkonig" was perhaps the most traditional, with each dancer playing a character to tell Goethe's tragic story of a son lost to the Erlking.

"Silhouettes" featured two women, once again using a mixture of awkward and graceful movements. Morris has been described as "undeviating in his devotion to music," which explains his ability to perfectly visualize music as a movement of the human body. The finale, "Dancing Honeymoon," presented a medley of Gertrude Lawrence songs from the 1930's and was a world away from the other pieces. The bright yellow costumes, the folding chairs as props and the cheer of the songs added up to a rollicking good time. And just when I thought things couldn't get any better, they started to throw the folding chairs over one another's heads.

But the most entertaining part of the evening was "Deck of Cards." In it, Morris gains the dubious distinction of being perhaps the only man to ever choreograph for a remote controled 18-wheeler. The first segment of the piece featured said remote controled 18-wheeler rolling across the stage with lights flashing. And things only got better as the twangy sounds of a George Jones somebody-done-me-wrong song rolled out and a woman in a flowing red dress and pumps struck a dramatic pose onstage. I checked my program again because I thought that Mark Morris was performing this piece. Sure enough, that was Morris himself in drag. The result was hilarious and yet oddly dignified as he strutted around the stage to "Say It's Not You."

Of course, this sort of innovation is something the Mark Morris Dance Group has led audiences to expect. Since its formation in 1980 by Morris, the group has been the darling of dance festivals around the world and won an Emmy for its film collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma '76. After a stint as the national dance company of Belgium, the group returned to the U.S. in 1991 and embarked on a full touring schedule, which fortunately includes frequent stops in Boston. Next time the group is in town, I highly recommend venturing out of the Square to catch a wonderful-and quite unusual-perfomance.

THE MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP

Oct. 26-29

Schubert Theater

Oct. 26-29

Schubert Theater