By Claudia La Rocco
The lights dim over a mostly full house at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Orchestra and chorus wait for the conductor to signal the opening chords of Vivaldi's "Gloria in D," and launch Mark Morris' epic dance, "Gloria."
The conductor, a large man with short, gray hair and a goatee, turns with a flourish to acknowledge the audience's rapturous applause, punctuated by an "I love you!" yelled from the crowd. The ardent fan is Guillermo Resto, one of Morris' original dancers.
And the conductor, whose natty black suit does not hide his stout tummy, is Mark Morris himself. The choreographer, famous for his musical intelligence and sensitivity, is making his debut at the podium.
* * * * * * * *
For a man who never particularly wanted to head a dance troupe, Morris has either done very well or very badly for himself.
He turns 50 this August, but the milestone belongs to the Mark Morris Dance Group. At 25, it has punctuated its birthday tour with a month of performances, lectures and exhibits at the venerable Brooklyn Academy, and across the street, at the Mark Morris Dance Center. The multistory complex of studios, offices and physical therapy rooms is a ridiculously luxurious home compared to the impoverished existence of most companies.
What started as a loose collection of friends, dancing for free, has grown into one of America's most beloved dance institutions, a touring powerhouse with an administrative staff of 19 and in-house musicians, the MMDG Music Ensemble. The subject of books and documentaries, Morris is in demand with ballet companies and opera houses and festivals around the world. Auditions draw hordes of hopeful dancers, collaborators range from Yo-Yo Ma to Mikhail Baryshnikov to Isaac Mizrahi, and there's a lengthy waiting list for students at the center's school, which currently serves 500 local youngsters.
And then there are the layered, humor-filled dances, 120 for his company alone. From quirky trios set to country music to grand ensemble pieces such as "Gloria," Morris probes the wonders, hopelessness and absurdities of the human condition, using music as his starting point.
It's a big, smart, engaging world -- not unlike the man himself.
"I feel like it's not an accident that I'm surrounded by lively, interesting people," Morris says. "It's exciting and wonderful and people are pleased with what they do. They're proud of what they do, because it's really at a high level and they work really ... hard. So it's like, 'Here, watch this show, I hope you like it.'"
He pauses, smiling mischievously as he sips a Sapporo beer in his lime-green office, surrounded by such oddities as a "Hello Kitty" blowup doll and what looks to be a paint-by-number picture of Jesus. "But, you know, you don't have to, really. You'll survive."
* * * * * * * *
Morris grew up in Seattle, the youngest of three. His father taught at a local high school, his mother stayed home with the children. As described in Joan Acocella's biography, "Mark Morris," he was an artist from an early age, creating music, plays and films with various family members.
He danced before he could walk, responding when his father played the double organ at home. When he was 8, and determined to be a flamenco dancer, he studied Spanish dance at a local studio. As a teenager, he mastered Balkan folk dancing; Morris' love of folk music and dancing remains clear in his own company, from his musical choices and rhythmic complexity to choreographic patterns.
Though he gave flamenco a brief go, living in Madrid, Spain, for several months in 1974, the New York dance scene proved irresistible. He landed here in 1976 and, four years later, the Mark Morris Dance Group debuted at the Merce Cunningham Studio. In 1981, "Gloria" premiered at Dance Theater Workshop.
"I made up 'Gloria' at the 99-seat old Dance Theater Workshop, with no wings, costumes from home and we did it to a recording," Morris says. "And it translated directly, with no modification, to a giant opera house with a full orchestra and chorus. It's the same dance as it was then, only it's now fully realized."
His means may have been meager, but his creative resources were not. People were drawn in, and stayed.
"After the first concert, it became the concert you wanted to do, if you were lucky enough. It was just brilliant," Resto says.
Critics also responded, some hailing Morris as the best choreographer of his generation, others irritated by his prominence.
"The Mark Morris experience is like nothing else in dance," New Yorker dance critic Arlene Croce wrote in 1984, the year the company held its first of 20 seasons at BAM. Four years later, New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff breezily dismissed Morris as "not a great choreographer" but "a fluent and entertaining one."
In a 1990 story, Kisselgoff suggested that Morris' outsized personality had much to do with his huge success as a choreographer as his technical abilities. She cited an infamous 1984 incident in which Morris yelled, "No more rape!" before walking out of a Twyla Tharp dance called "Nine Sinatra Songs," featuring rather brutal partnering, at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina.
Morris' extreme wit and penchant for speaking his mind, combined with his mane of dark curls, earned the young artist the "enfant terrible" nickname, with reporters eager to capitalize on his juicy quips.
Meanwhile, he was steadily building a body of rigorously structured, wonderfully humanistic dances -- such as the masterful "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato," set to Handel and an arrangement of John Milton's poetry. These large-scale dances, plus "The Hard Nut," a contemporary staging of the "Nutcracker," were created at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, in Brussels, where Morris served as dance director from 1988 to 1991.
Though Belgium was terrific for the company, providing extensive resources and planting the seeds for the Brooklyn home, Morris found the culture to be uptight and prejudiced. Many in the press waged war against the young upstart who had replaced their beloved Maurice Bejart. Audiences grew increasingly raucous.
"People were trying to outdo each other cheering and booing," Resto recalls. "Mark would just stand there, arms out, like, 'Give me all you got.' But I know it was tough for him. And he's a tough guy."
When the company returned home, it was changed, with many new, young dancers and fewer of the original members who, as Resto acknowledges, did not find the transition from small company to "empire" an easy one.
The company now has 18 dancers. Striking individuals all, they are equally enthralling on immense opera house stages and in intimate spaces, such as the center's studio, where the company has been restaging Morris' smaller works in three "Solos, Duets & Trios" programs.
"That's one reason that my company sticks out so far -- I have mature, intelligent artists," says Morris. "I work them very, very hard and they work me very, very hard. And it's really, really satisfying."
When asked what Morris demands of his dancers, Julie Worden, a company member since 1994, responds without hesitation: "Everything."
"You stick around because it's enormously challenging, mentally and physically," she says.
Morris himself doesn't dance much anymore, but did reprise his role in "From Old Seville" for the "Solos" programs. Set to Manuel Requiebros' "A Esa Mujer," the 2001 piece shows off Morris' flamenco roots in a wickedly funny dance-off with the diminutive but feisty Lauren Grant.
"I perform because I like to and I'm really good at it and people like it," Morris says. "But you know, it used to be that you warmed up for two minutes to dance for two hours. Now you have to warm up for two hours to dance for two minutes."
He giggles. "I'm almost 50. ... What more do you want from me?"
Everything.
On the Net:
Mark Morris Dance Group: www.mmdg.org
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
