I spent two afternoons in the darkened theater at Bryn Mawr considering
what the difference is between a competent or even great artist and a brilliant
one and why some traditional folkloric music and dance is moving to me on a level more primal than
anything the post-moderns could ever serve up. Being the daughter of a square and folk dance caller who was thrown into the maelstrom of dancing grownups from a very young age certainly has a lot to do with it. But I don't think you need that kind of connection to feel this dancing in the soul-stirring way that I do.
In creating a new dance for Voloshky Ukrainian Dance
Ensemble, Mark Morris looked very closely at the regional dances the group
performed for him. He absorbed their movement language, making use of distinctive
moves. But more importantly, their ethos – of a community of dancers,
portraying moments in the lives of their village, their ‘tribe’—is one Morris
has been incorporating in his own dances all along. He has credited his early
Balkan dancing as being formative, and not only for the experience of repeating
circles and lines and rhythmic patterns. The unity of the group, their social
exuberance, factored strongly.
Our age can be one of virtual more than physical connection.
So to see dancers and musicians
cooperate so fully in representing a vision of human togetherness that is at
once geographically specific and
completely recognizable is a reminder of where we came from; the ur-past
we share. Hearts are full; hearts are broken. Young men display their
prowess, and women theirs—fiddling as if on fire, and singing in tones that
will pierce any reserve. There are reasons to shout and stamp and swirl and
run. It’s the full catastrophe of human experience in dance, instrumental music
and song.
The spatial patterns and tricky steps in the traditional works are something Morris understands and
makes full use of. But where the Ukrainian dances are comparatively clean
and direct, his new Carnival, set to Saint-Saens, has rounded edges and more sly humor. His themes recur in a
satisfying way. A full lyricism that sustains itself by breathing the music for
sustenance is his hallmark. And with the Ukrainians, it reaches full flowering
in a new way.
Watching Morris rehearse his dance with both dancers and
musicians is to see an artist move a performance from wonderful to sublime. He
teases out voices, he insists on exact angles and changes arcs of emphasis. It’s
a god-in-the-details thing, and the details he drives for, like dancers adding
one movement beat on to the very end of a dance after the musicians finish, are the
flourishes and distinctions that make the whole gleam.
The two halves of this show, one traditional but
choreographed by a now-89 year old Ukrainian master, Anatoly Kryvochyzha, and
one choreographed by what Alastair Macaulay called one of the “foremost living
choreographers” in last Sunday’s New York Times act as a conversation across
geography and time. For Voloshky to dance something contemporary requires
Morris to look to the past. It offers us a chance hear the echo of their and
our histories in the ever-so-ecstatic present.
Show info here.
Show info here.
