Mark Morris and his company have been doing a lot of work with using dance with people who have Parkinsons Disease. I have posted some of the articles and videos on this blog in past posts. I imagine the dance and movement with these non-dancers, used to rehabilitate and give expression, will be a future source of fascinating choreography. I hope.
SF Ballet is always a pleasure to watch, and its a real treat when I get to see any live performance, but Morris's choreography left me a bit confused. What was he trying to convey? In A Garden, for example, choreography was a blending of traditional and contemporary ballet, with very blah costumes (I especially was turned off by the color of the mens shirts). It seemed just a bit too scattered and arbitrary of a piece. It lacked a sense of cohesion and flavor until the pas-de-deux, which spurt out a bit more spice and chemistry.
The second piece was much more my personal style, very contemporary. The dancers were in incredibly shimmery-gold-spandex unitards that screamed the Star Wars' character, C-3PO in a much more oiled and smoothly sculpted body. There were digitally lit numbers that flickered and changed on the dancers' bellies, a statement of...something.
Perhaps left to the audience's individual interpretations. The choreography and music were erratic and unique, heart-pounding and eye catching. To me, the movements, and especially the poses, echoed contemporary society's image-oriented obsession, a focus on numbers and flashy things. This is particularly interesting to me, considering the SF Ballet posters all around town, on buses, bus stop advertisements, taxis, and store windows, show the image of the principal ballerina, an emaciated arm outstretched, in an exasperated expression, and milky white skin pounded with blush.
To me, the antithesis of what (I hoped) Mark Morris's choreography conveyed.
I've gotta get to writing my paper, so my next few postings will be of the youtube videos I've been watching while I procrastinate. Here's one:
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