Mark Morris

We heard the Mark Morris Dance Company perform Handel's "Acis and Galatea" the other night.   Morris is truly an original, and creates in his own world, which is different from much of contemporary dance.  In this case, the piece was a choreographed performance of Handel's early opera, "Acis and Galatea", in Mozart's arrangement.  To start with, the performance of the orchestra, the Berkeley-based Baroque Philaharmonia, was superb.  It was fascinating to hear Mozart's reworking of Handel; Handel with clarinets!   (The orchestration dates from the time of Mozart's writing the clarinet quintet, etc.)   The chorus was equally superb; and several of the singers were great as well.
What Morris did was to have the chorus in the pit, but have the singers on stage, interacting with the 16 dancers.  So what you saw was a fully acted performance of the opera, with the addition of nearly continuous choreography at the same time.  So your eyes could be attracted to the singers, the dancers, and of course the surtitles for the text. A lot to take in!   Morris's choreography is closely attuned to the music, and very quirky at times.   He sometimes imitates the text in a totally literal fashion; for example, a singer says the word "shakes" and the dancers start literally shaking.  This is goofy stuff, and happens frequently.   Morris also reflects the music literally in other ways, as in when the canonic entries in the music are duplicated in the choreography.   But somehow it all works as a whole in ways that are mysterious to me.  I remember being totally mystified by his "Socrate" the first time I saw it.  The second time I saw it it, I thought it was truly a masterpiece.   I would happily see anything Morris does a number of times.