Mark Morris brings light and warmth to GMU

Dancing Honeymoon, Mark Morris Dance Company (photo by Christopher Duggan)
The annual visits of Mark Morris Dance Group to the area are always welcome. The group's latest appearance at the George Mason University Center for the Arts, however, was a much-needed shot in the arm after what has been a long, long winter. The selection of four choreographies, two a decade or more in age and two premiered just last year, offered a ray of sunlight, with none of the somber qualities of some previous programs.

Late Romantic ballet was one of the great fusions of all the arts, akin to Richard Wagner's music drama. In his long career Mark Morris has stripped away almost all of that trend toward unification of the arts, using no sets, few props, and in most cases no easily recognizable narrative, at least not in the traditional sense. A Morris choreography is abstract, concentrated on movement, music (always performed, as here, by live musicians), and mood conveyed through lighting and color.

The evening opened with A Forest, premiered last May. Costumed in unisex body suits of gray and white paisley (designed by Maile Okamura), the dancers incarnated the whimsical musical gestures from Haydn's piano trio no. 44 (Hob. XV:28), performed by violinist Georgy Valtchev, cellist Michael Haas, and pianist Colin Fowler. The theme of threes -- three instruments in three movements -- is the somewhat obvious main focus, as the nine dancers are grouped into a trio of trios. Most of the movements were playful: bending knees on strong downbeats, flashing the hands upward on pizzicato notes, standing still in extended poses at sudden silences. In the enigmatic second movement, the piano's meandering bass line inspired much striding around the stage, and loud bass notes knocked dancers down to the floor. It created a joyous atmosphere of bubbly exuberance but seemed to miss a more profound statement.

The other new work, Pure Dance Items, premiered last October, was the most active and exhausting. Selections from Terry Riley's two-hour marathon string quartet Salome Dances for Peace added up to about a half-hour of near-constant movement for a group of twelve dancers, often unbalanced by the exclusion of one dancer. This began in the striking opening sequence, where one dancer is seated apart from the rest of the group, eventually joining them in all of their movements, but only with his arms, as if his legs are paralyzed. In a thrilling moment of fantasy, this dancer stood and joined the ensemble for the rest of the dance, jostling the group's order. Colorful sports jerseys and shorts for both men and women (designed by Elizabeth Kurtzman) evoked an athletic joy in movement and physical exertion, recalling soccer players or, as Miss Ionarts saw it, 60s-style surfers.



Pure Dance Items, Mark Morris Dance Company (photo by Costas)
The solo dance Serenade, premiered in 2003 here at the GMU Center for the Arts, provided a moment of calm. Lesley Garrison, costumed in an Isaac Mizrahi black and white skirt with white bow, seemed at times to mimic traits of Spanish, Indian, or Japanese dance, using props (a copper pipe, a fan, and finger cymbals) in the middle dances. Morris made this choreography for himself, making the decision to add the sound of castanets to the final movement of the piece, Lou Harrison's hypnotic Serenade for Guitar and Percussion. He was unable to ask the permission of the composer, who had died as Morris was rehearsing the new dance. Garrison may have taken over the dance now, but in a surprise move Morris joined the musicians (guitarist Robert Belinić and percussionist Stefan Schatz) on stage to play his castanet part.

Morris's participation set up the final piece, Dancing Honeymoon, for which the choreographer himself sang Ethan Iverson's transcription and arrangement of jazz standards sung by Gertrude Lawrence and Jack Buchanan. A group of seven dancers, in sun-yellow costumes evoking the 1920s and 30s (designed by Elizabeth Kurtzman), mimed the mild innuendos of the songs in tableaux that might seem escapist in the style of La La Land (a "kitschfest," as Alex Ross put it) but whose innocence and elan won me over. The piece, premiered in 1998, is Morris's love letter to dance, heard in the opening words of the title song: "I hated dancing / 'til I met you: / It never found me / until I found your arms around me." Morris's singing was perhaps not great, but that was hardly the point; when he brought out the castanets again, for the song "Goodnight, Vienna," Morris seemed at one with the music, even if he was no longer dancing.

This program repeats tonight at 8 p.m. at George Mason University's Center for the Arts in Fairfax, Va.

Mark Morris Dance Group, Among the Shades

Whelm, Mark Morris Dance Company
When Mark Morris Dance Group passes through the area, every year or so, Ionarts is there. The group's latest appearance, on Friday night at the George Mason University Center for the Arts, was a typical mixture of joy and darkness. If there was not a stand-out work this time around, like the unforgettable Socrates in 2013, the program was varied and well-rounded.

The most memorable work was the terse and mysteriously somber Whelm, premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music last April. The action unfolds in Hell, or in some other murky, chthonic locale, with a woman in a black mourning veil interacting with three spirits, all in black and hoods (costumes by Elizabeth Kurtzman). The dancers moved in sync with the snowy steps of Debussy's Des pas sur la neige (Préludes, Book 1, no. 6) at the outset, while the veiled woman seemed to fight against the other three in the more frenetic middle section, set to the same composoer's Étude pour les notes répétées, played by the company's intrepid pianist, Colin Fowler. In the final section, set to Debussy's prelude La cathédrale engloutie, the dancers seemed more like tidal forces, rolling toward the front of the stage and then ebbing backward.

Cargo, premiered at Tanglewood in 2005, began in silence, with the dancers like a tribe of apish hominids gingerly approaching a pole placed on the ground at center stage. The pole becomes a cherished talisman for the dancers, serving as spear-like weapon, unifying groups of dancers who hold on to it, and carrying the limp bodies of dancers taken as prey -- seeming to fit with the South Pacific "cargo cults" mentioned as the inspiration in Morris's program note. The music is Darius Milhaud's La Création du Monde, heard here in the composer's later reduction of the score for piano and string quartet. Although you miss the saxophone and drums in this version, the jazzy overtones are still clear, used by Milhaud to accompany the ballet on an African creation legend. Here the story is more a comic counterpart to the tribal gestures of The Rite of Spring, with the dancers costumed in white underwear (costumes by Katharine McDowell).

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, The colorful restraint of the Mark Morris Dance Group (Washington Post, February 22)

The oldest work, Resurrection from 2002, provided some comic relief. To the polished swing of Richard Rodgers's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, played unfortunately from a recording, Morris tells a hard-boiled faux-noir story, with his energetic dancer Lauren Grant getting shot, then taking her revenge, only to end up in a broad Hollywood kiss with her murderous paramour on top of a human pyramid. Morris plays with all sorts of classic musical gestures, down to the kick line, almost a synchronized swimming routine, of the dancers in a circle. Morris's new choreography The, premiered at Tanglewood last summer and commissioned for Tanglewood's 75th anniversary, is somewhat reminiscent of L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato with its pastel costumes and happy upbeat style. Morris uses a transcription of Bach's first Brandenburg Concerto, by Max Reger for piano four-hands, so we lose all the fun of the raucous horns intruding on the courtly dance scene, and transposes the third-movement "Allegro" to the end of the piece, destroying Bach's odd form of a dance suite appended to the three-movement concerto. The perky staccato movements of the second trio movement, one of the score's delights, were a highlight.

Mark Morris and Lou Harrison

Words, Mark Morris Dance Group
The Mark Morris Dance Group has been coming to the George Mason University Center for the Arts every couple of years. We try not to miss any of their local appearances, especially not one that features two choreographies set to the music of American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003), seen on Saturday evening in the first of two performances. The whole affair, including two fun dances set to Mendelssohn and a recording of Indian music, was whimsical and occasionally breath-taking, invigorated by Morris's reliance on the shape of the music to create his dancers' movements -- and, not unrelated, his insistence on live music.

Morris created Pacific for a different company, and this performance was the premiere of this choreography with his own troupe. Harrison and Morris collaborated on several works in the 1980s and 90s, and this work sets the third and fourth movements of the composer's piano trio, performed here by violinist Georgy Valtchev, cellist Robert Burkhart, and pianist Colin Fowler. Sections of music for solo violin and combinations of the instruments correspond to groupings of the nine dancers, with the men bare-chested in long skirts and the women in dresses (costumes by Martin Pakledinaz), combining bright colors with white. Stark lighting of glowing colors projected on a rear screen (lighting by James F. Ingalls) was matched to the costumes. The finale of this dance, bringing together all of the dancers, was vibrant and joy-filled, with shifts of steps that corresponded to the metric disorientation in the music, over a constant beating pulse.

Grand Duo, also from the 90s, opens to the somewhat mysterious prelude movement of Harrison's Grand Duo for Violin and Piano, on a stage shrouded in darkness, with the dancers reaching their hands into a beam of light shining across the stage. To the slightly folksy, active-sounding movements that follow, Morris gives a somewhat ritual or tribal feel of dances for his large group of 14 dancers, with the men in skirts or loincloths and the women in colored dresses. The second movement, Stampede, had multi-metric shifts in the movements that matched the music, echoed in the later Pacific, followed by A Round, featuring graceful but painstaking held poses. The finale, the antic Polka, was a wild rumpus of crazy movement, capturing beautifully the verve of Harrison's music, hammered clusters and all.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Mark Morris Dance Group’s many surprises flow naturally at GMU (Washington Post, March 2)

The two dances in between provided the whimsy, especially the brief Tamil Film Songs in Stereo Pas de Deux, the only piece performed to a recording, featuring the sounds of Indian music. Brian Lawson's campy gay dance instructor harasses, belittles, but ultimately affirms the struggling dance student of Stacy Martorana, a welcome moment of levity with some resonance as commentary on how dance is taught.

The longer Words is set to selections from Mendelssohn's various Songs without Words. Here the costumes (pastel tank tops and shorts with belts) and a blanket, carried on and off to cover entrances and exits, suggested a picnic or beach party, as did the playful gestures of some of the dances, something like tennis or another type of game. Again, Morris found movements that were the ideal visual counterpart of the music they accompanied: twirling bodies for the chromatic "spinning wheel" motif of op. 67/4; heavy steps and lowered heads for the "funeral march" (op. 62/3), ending with two dancers finally seeing one another and looking into each other's faces; much of the choreography is a jeu de miroirs, with dancers in paired parallel movements. Most strikingly, in one piece dancers clenched their hands in front of their bodies, making them shudder up and down, when there was the distinctive sound of an authentic cadence over a tonic pedal. The sound, which is distinctive, will now forever be linked to that gesture in my mind.

Mark Morris's Neoclassicism

Socrates, Mark Morris Dance Company (photo by Gene Schiavone, courtesy of GMU Center for the Arts)

The success of a Mark Morris choreography often seems linked to his choice of music: irresistible with Handel, the Schumann piano quintet, Mozart, Purcell, but less so in other cases. The mixed program brought by Mark Morris Dance Group to George Mason University Center for the Arts on Saturday night fell out along similar lines. In The Office, from 1994, three men and three women clad in semi-casual business attire (costumes by June Omura) wait for a severe, clipboard-wielding woman to call them into an office offstage -- are they being interviewed for a job, or being downsized one by one? Beginning with all six, and decreasing in number after each section of music, their movements incarnated the flight of fancy in response to the torment of waiting. The whimsical character of Dvořák's Bagatelles for two violins, cello, and harmonium (op. 47) captured the sense of minds wandering.

Morris's insistence on having live music to accompany his dancers extended in this case to having a harmonium in the pit (played by the versatile and talented Colin Fowler, with unexpected and pleasing results), even though Dvořák specifies that the part could be played on a piano instead. Flavors of square dance and tap crept into the choreography, and the canon of violin and cello in the fourth movement was reflected in the echo of a single dancer who mirrored two preceding dancers in the same way. By comparison, the newest choreography, Festival Dance, premiered in 2011, was set to music that seemed far less inspired, Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Trio No. 5 in E major (op. 83). Some motifs in the dance came directly from the music: a tiptoe run that went with a skittering upward scale in the piano (the demanding part quite a workout for Fowler), and a staccato theme that gave rise to a funny up-and-down bobbing motion. The most beautiful part of this dance was a more ballet-oriented look, beginning with the opening pas de deux, full of graceful lifts, while other popular hints of the waltz or music theater seemed slightly hackneyed.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Mark Morris Dance Group, mixing pleasure and pain (Washington Post, February 11) ---, Mark Morris designs a dance after he picks his music (Washington Post, February 2)

Still, nothing prepared me for the austere beauty of Socrates, Morris's classical response to Erik Satie's Socrate, a setting of excerpts from three of Plato's dialogues, especially focusing on a portrait of the life and death of his teacher, Socrates. The score was an extremely influential one, arranged for two pianos by John Cage (also for a choreography, by Merce Cunningham, later reworked into Cheap Imitation) and having elements of simplicity and repetition that foreshadow minimalism later in the century. Although Satie intended the work to feature four singers, preserving the sense of dialogue, the parts are all intentionally uniform in range, making a performance by a single voice (here the sweet high tenor of Zach Finkelstein) not only possible but satisfying. In the same way, Satie's original version for piano only seems stronger than the orchestration he made later, especially as performed here, with steady tempi and an intentionally rather plain, almost affect-less approach. The choreography, featuring a large cast of dancers in pseudo-Greek short chitons (Martin Pakledinaz), often seemed like group athlete portraits on Greek vases springing to life. The movements did not necessarily narrate Satie's French text, until the end where various parts of the final day of Socrates, drinking the poison hemlock and dying, are played out by individual dancers and the entire group. The overall effect was somber, hypnotic, and unforgettable.

Mark Morris's Fête Galante

Orpheus torn to pieces by the Maenads, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, Mark Morris Dance Group

We try to catch every visit by the Mark Morris Dance Group, as we have done in 2010, 2009, and 2008, but there were few of the American choreographer's works we more wanted to see than L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, experienced last night at the Kennedy Center Opera House. An exuberant translation into movement of Handel's oratorio L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, the work was one of the first successes of Morris's sometimes rocky tenure at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Handel's music, heard in concert from Opera Lafayette two years ago, is set to a libretto by Charles Jennens. Quite similar to his Messiah, it is a mash-up of existing poetry, bringing together two opposing poems by Milton, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, opposing the two characters of happiness and melancholy and reconciling them with a third allegorical voice, that of moderation, Il Moderato, with poetry written by Jennens.

The oratorio is strikingly beautiful on its own, but Morris has choreographed it with such effervescent joy that it becomes something new and different and even more rewarding to experience. As in so many of Morris's choreographies, Handel's musical motifs and formal structures are revealed by the dancers, not as some dull analytical exercise but with an enlightening visual pop. The sense of dance and movement underlying Baroque music -- heightened here by the addition of an introductory overture, Handel's G major concerto grosso (op. 6/1) -- is nowhere so clear as in the way Morris shows it. Morris tilts the scales obviously to the side of L'Allegro, making joy and happiness, rather than moderation as Jennens saw it, carry the day. There are little vignettes that illustrate the melancholy side, loves thwarted into tragedy, but this is not soul-crushing melancholy but the gloom of imagination that inspires artistic creativity (the role of that humor in Renaissance philosophy).

Morris's movement ideas often come directly from the text, sometimes naive like the udder-pulling movement that goes with the bucolic image of milkmaids singing, but still charming. The pastel colors of the costumes (designed by Christine Van Loon) and the moving scrims of the abstract set (Adrianne Lobel), that move and rearrange into different patterns and color schemes, the sense of leisure and fantasy, pastoral escapism reminded me of nothing more than a Rococo painting, a series of Watteau pastels come to life, part theater, part dream. Lifted dancers made some of the most memorable images, especially in bird-like flights in the arias Mirth, admit me of thy crew and Sweet bird, in imitation of the avian twitters of violin and flute solos. In one unforgettable tableau, a troupe of dancers flitted about like the flock of starlings in Dante's second circle. The horn calls of To listen how the hounds inspired a hunting scene, with dancers forming groves of trees and shrubs, while a hilarious group of dogs pursued its quarry. Courtly dance, like that of an English masque, and its assimilation of country folk dance pervaded many of Morris's gestures, as in the grand roundel that ends the first half.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Under Mark Morris, Handel oratorio becomes a visual feast (Washington Post, January 28) ---, Mark Morris’s “L’Allegro”: Imagination Unbound (Washington Post, January 21)

The second half has the more enigmatic moments. A feisty and whimsical male ensemble number -- all violence and sports-like butt-slapping, followed by dainty kisses and paired prancing -- is followed by an all-graceful female ensemble. The one tragic moment came from the mention of Orpheus, to which Morris responded with an episode from the legend of that hero. Not the more famous episode with the death of Eurydice, but Orpheus's death as told by Ovid, in which, despondent at the loss of his wife, Orpheus turns his attention to youths. In jealous anger the band of his female followers, the Maenads who practice the Orphic cult, tear him to shreds. The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, under the baton of Morris regular Jane Glover, played admirably, with Joseph Gascho (on organ and the slightly hokey celesta for the bell aria) and Adam Pearl (on harpsichord) rounding out the continuo. The fine chorus of the Washington Bach Consort, expertly prepared by J. Reilly Lewis (who was in the house), sang from the left side of the pit, with an able quartet of vocal soloists (sopranos Christine Brandes and Lisa Saffer, tenor John McVeigh, and baritone Thomas Meglioranza) on the right. The performance makes for a perfect cure for the winter doldrums.

This performance repeats tonight (January 28, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Mark Morris Dance Group: 'V' Is for 'Visitation'

Empire Garden, Mark Morris Dance Group (photo by Gene Schiavone)

The historic snowstorms that hit the Washington area in February turned the year upside down in many ways, and not only for someone like me who teaches in a school during the day. In practical terms many performances were canceled this winter, and one of those was finally rescheduled on this past Saturday night at the George Mason University Center for the Arts. In general when the Mark Morris Dance Group comes to the area, we try to attend, even if it involves a long trip out to Fairfax and especially when the journey through the wilds of Virginia means the chance to see the local premieres of three new works by the prolific American choreographer. Rescheduling a touring performance four months later is not easy, especially for a choreographer like Morris, who insists on performing to live music, performed here, as always, by musicians who are associated with the troupe.

The first half consisted of a pair of short ballets premiered only last summer, during the Tanglewood Festival, and since taken on the road to London and other cities. Like the longer work on the second half, V (that's the Roman numeral for five), both are set to chamber music, and they reflect that more intimate type of music for fewer voices, something that was literally designed for a person's home. Morris choreographed Visitation to Beethoven's fourth sonata for cello and piano, performed here by cellist Wolfram Koessel and pianist Colin Fowler (the performances at Lincoln Center featured Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax). Not unlike other Morris choreographies, Visitation opens with an odd number of dancers, five, and seems to be about the search for pairing, both fulfilled and frustrated, here represented by the solo figure of Maile Okamura. There was also a close correspondence between the musical inspiration and the gestures, another typical Morris quality, here pervaded by a child-like innocence in the movements, which also followed the formal structure of each movement. The slow grace of the opening sections of the second movement exploded for the Allegro vivace conclusion, down to the low notes of the cello part being represented by a funeral procession-like carrying of inert dancers to the playful shove of partners to the floor with Beethoven's forceful final cadences.

Other Articles: Sarah Kaufman, Mark Morris Dance Group performs at George Mason Center for the Arts (Washington Post, June 14) ---, In the world of choreographer Mark Morris, live music is key (Washington Post, June 12) PREVIOUSLY: Mozart Dances (Kennedy Center, 2009) Dido and Aeneas (George Mason, 2008)

Empire Garden takes its completely different character -- capturing something of the splashy exuberance and corny enthusiasm of an American parade (or perhaps political campaign) -- from the Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano of Charles Ives. The brightly colored costumes by Elizabeth Kurtzman recall marching band uniforms or circus outfits, reinforcing the air of stylized, ultimately empty display created by Morris's choreography of often robotic movements (jagged, accented jumps, strutting march patterns, and an alternately disconcerting or amusing gargoyle-like yawning of the mouth). The campiness is most pronounced in the scherzo second movement (which Ives titled "TSIAJ," supposedly an acronym for "This scherzo is a joke"), filled with some corny quotations of American folk songs and even Yale fraternity tunes. Morris's choreography seems equally tongue in cheek.

The more serious work on the second half, V, is set to Schumann's op. 44 piano quintet, a work recently described here as "one of the most perfect works of chamber music" in a gorgeous performance by the Takács Quartet and Joyce Yang. The musical performance presented here was not up to that level but provided a good enough background for the choreography, dating from 2001 and now a Morris classic. Two sets of seven dancers are set off by their different costumes -- satiny bluebird shorts and semi-open blouses versus celery green tank tops and slacks (designed by Martin Pakledinaz). Once again, the score's motifs are matched to memorable movements that help underscore the musical forms: the funeral march of the second movement corresponded to a mechanical crawling on the floor that ran through the whole movement, for example, and the fugal transformation of the last movement's theme was represented by the repetition of the corresponding gestures by a pair of dancers at each statement.

You have to wait only until next season for the Mark Morris Dance Group to return to the George Mason University Center for the Arts, for a stop on its 30th anniversary tour on February 4, 2011.

Mark Morris on the relationship of music and dance

See Also: Mozart Dances

Mozart Dances
Mark Morris Dance Group
Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

Much of the appeal for a musician was to see how Morris realized the form of the score with corresponding visual ideas, staging the cadenza to K. 413's first movement as a little scene, for example. Most of the slower middle movements were relaxed, with softer, often pink lighting (designed by James F. Ingalls), and the bubbly outer movements percolated with jauntier movement. When there was repetition in the music, the corresponding visual ideas returned as well, developed and elaborated in a way that showed how musical ideas, when they return in these forms, are both familiar and new. While Oppens could have been tighter and more coherent in K. 413, she was solid and more consistent on the solo of the B-flat major concerto, K. 595, which underlay the final act, Twenty-Seven. The troupe of dancers formed crisp ensembles, working best in small groups and seeming a little off kilter when amassed as a whole.

Charles T. Downey, Mark Morris Makes Mozart Dance (DCist, February 2)

ALSO:

• Sarah Kaufman, Morris Bares Ol' Mozart's Sensual Soul (Washington Post, January 31)
  
• Jean Battey Lewis, Morris with Mozart (Washington Times, February 2)

Mark Morris's Dido and Aeneas

Craig Biesecker (Aeneas) and Amber Darragh (Dido), Mark Morris Dance Group, photo by Stephanie Berger

When Mark Morris created his modern dance version of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas in Brussels in 1989, he cast himself in the roles of Dido and the Sorceress. With a male Aeneas and Morris's signature unisex approach to his corps of dancers, it created a gender-bending ambiguity in an interpretation with the question of gender identity and sexual desire at its core. Since retiring from the stage, Morris has tried to recreate the original production's success through recasting. In Friday night's performance at the George Mason University Center for the Arts, one of Mark Morris Dance Group's female dancers took both roles, and although the work has lost some of its magnetism it still packs quite a visual punch.

Morris is responsible for the direction and choreography of this production and also conducted the instrumental ensemble, officially under the leadership of cellist Wolfram Koessel. The disadvantage is that Morris has no musical training, although he undoubtedly knows the score very well, but the advantage is that a pair of eyes that knows the choreography inside out is setting the musical pace. Musically, this was not a superlative evening, at least by the standards of the best historically informed performance ensembles (see my review of recordings). The singers, while generally good, were amplified, and the strings had a few clumsy moments, especially early in the evening. The strongest voice was Jamie Van Eyck, a promising young mezzo-soprano last reviewed here in the Tanglewood performance of Elliott Carter's What Next?. Her Dido and Sorceress were sinewy and vital, more muscular than burnished. The George Mason University Singers, taking advantage of a remarkable performing opportunity, sang with unity and accuracy, bunched together at one end of the orchestra pit. One of their own, Adam Rothschild, was even selected to sing a brief solo as a sailor.

Available at Amazon: Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, Tafelmusik, Mark Morris Dance Group

While one might have wished instead for the accompaniment of Tafelmusik and a starrier vocal cast (as on the group's DVD release of this production, available through their Web site), the music is only one part of the aesthetic pleasure afforded by this work and it is certainly better to have a good live performance than an excellent recorded one. The set design by Robert Bordo is austere, a fence-like barrier at the back of the stage, which is covered by a turquoise curtain that obscures a shining light (lighting by James F. Ingalls). Stepping into Morris's shoes, Amber Darragh is distinguished from the corps only by her silvery fingernails. She cut an aquiline and strong-shouldered profile, convincingly androgynous at times. The unisex black shirts (costumes by Christine Van Loon) obscure the differences between male and female dancers, with the only exception being Craig Biesecker's bare-chested Aeneas.

Morris's choreography is stitched closely to the music, with runs in the vocal line, for example, paired with frantic hand movements, or an evenly running basso continuo (as in the Second Woman's Oft she visits this lone mountain) set to the corps's rapidly shuffling feet. The vocabulary could be described as one part vaguely traditional, another part show choir kitsch, and another strikingly unconventional. The sorceress's first appearance, with Darragh writhing on a small bed, was one of the most memorable moments, and that image finds its echo when Darragh's Dido collapses, dead, at the end. The sense of the visual activation of the music's rhythmic vitality, even if it is not authentic Baroque dance, is one of the things that makes this version so captivating. So much of Baroque music is made for dancing and without that component of organized movement, it loses a part of its meaning.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Mark Morris's 'Dido': Invigorated Virgil (Washington Post< February 18)

As for the postmodern subtext layered under the libretto by Nahum Tate, the opera was created for a girl's school in Chelsea, where its condemnation of the dangers of love may have been construed as a message to the "young gentlewomen" of the school. Dido and Aeneas's love is destroyed, not by the gods as in Virgil, but by the sorceress and her witches, presented here, justifiably in terms of the 17th-century ballet's sense of evil, in a somewhat burlesque way. Morris's twist is that Dido is, in a sense, betrayed by her own self-hatred, since the sorceress is her double, a spiteful Doppelgänger hungry to bring down anyone "in prosp'rous state." When the witches watch the sailors readying to depart, they celebrate their victory with a dumbshow about romantic love. Turn by turn, a pair of lovers rises up from the corps, finding one another, embracing, and then one violently killing the other. Each murder in the sequence causes the sorceress to clap in delight, until she finally collapses in orgasmic ecstasy. Happy Valentine's Day to you, too, Mark Morris.

The remaining performance of Mark Morris Dance Group's Dido and Aeneas is tonight (February 16, 8 pm), with a male lead dancer, Bradon McDonald, as Dido and the Sorceress.