Mark Morris Dance Group, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, London Coliseum
- Performer/company: Mark Morris Dance Group
- Production: L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
- Venue: London Coliseum
londondance.com - Graham Watts
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
Reviewed: 14 April
‘Mirth, admit me of thy crew’, is a line from John Milton’s poetry sung repeatedly in the First Part of Mark Morris’ L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; an exhortation underlined by the additional carefree ideals of ‘jest and youthful jollity’ and ‘unreprovèd pleasures free’. Milton’s sentiments, written around 465 years ago, turned into an accurate prophesy for this audience, most of whom had clearly joined the Goddess of Merriment’s happy bunch by the end of a wonderful, witty and truly uplifting performance.
There are very few modern dance works that stop the clocks, but L’Allegro tops the list of these elite timeless classics (perhaps sharing the summit with Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring). It was the first work Morris made after exporting his US-based Dance Group - in 1988 - to become the resident company at the national opera house in Brussels and it represents an outpouring of creativity unleashed by the greater capacities of space, personnel and cash available to him in that new environment. At around 100 minutes’ duration, L’Allegro’ is not a moment too long. It occasionally veers towards a narrative interpretation of Milton’s poetic imagery but, for the most part it remains a joyful, colourful masterpiece of pure dance, in which glorious patterns of flowing movement have such symmetry, musicality and continuity as to make it a live work of art, never seen before or to be seen again in quite the same way.
Morris accomplishes a splendid three-card trick with choreography that brings Handel’s orchestral and choral music and Milton’s poetry (arranged by Handel’s librettist, Charles Jennens) into a seamless and vivid visualisation through the integrated movements of his large ensemble of 24 dancers. The interleaving of 11 movements of L’Allegro (the happy or joyful “man”) with 9 of Il Penseroso (the thoughtful “man) and a single sequence for Il Moderato (the even-tempered “man”), provide light and shade with each element framed by sliding panels, ranging from whole blocks of colour to gaol-like bars on transparent screens that sometimes trap dancers between or beyond them, while others perform in full and unencumbered view. The blocks of colour in the moving set design are reflected in the variety of single pastel colours of the dancers’ costumes: shades of yellow, blue, green, purple and pink in vests, shirts and calf-length leggings for the men and shift dresses for women. This is, however, a largely unisex, pastoral realm in which women are clearly the equals of men, sharing the burdens of lifting and partnering. All the dancers are barefoot.
The choreography is a marathon of wit and invention. A classical base of stretched limbs, with elegant jetés en tournant and pirouettes, is layered with ordinary hops, skips and two-footed jumps. Handel’s music is routinely interpreted in courtly, baroque dances both for grouped couples and in processional formation. Milton’s poetry is represented by choreographic vignettes: a reference to the ‘hounds and the horn’ becomes two “animals” being hunted by a pack of dogs, followed by a coach and horses, weaving amongst trees and bushes, all of which are portrayed by dancers, individually or in groups. When the poems speak of ‘shallow brooks and rivers wide’ the dancers’ floor-based movement undulates the watery references.
We see and hear the lark ascending but L’Allegro is so much more than the mere visualization of words and music. Above all else, its brilliance lies in the flowing architecture of bodies in space, creating gorgeous geometric and kaleidoscopic lines, shapes and colours. Occasionally, a dancer turned or was lifted awkwardly or moved too soon (a “bush” crawled away a few bars early, before quickly scurrying back); but these blemishes were as charming as the patina on a seventeenth century bronze. The only irritation was a frequent lack of clarity in the sung words, even when sitting just a few rows from the orchestra pit.
‘Come and trip it as you go, on the light fantastic toe’, is a repeated couplet in Milton’s verse that sums it up much better than any words I could write. Tripping the light fantastic; Morris and his outstanding troupe of dancers (not forgetting the important contributions of the ENO orchestra and the New London Chamber Choir) provided delight, joy and mirth in a work of immense imagination, touched, liberally, by genius. It is a five-star, must-see experience.
Limited number of seats available: www.eno.org
Press - David Dougill, Sunday Times
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
‘There is no lovelier or happier creation in the recent history of contemporary dance, all its components fitting together with an unerring sense of “rightness”’.Press - Luke Jennings, Guardian
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
"Through choreography of deceptive simplicity, Morris creates whole architectures of human experience."
Press - Zoe Anderson, Independent
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
***** ‘It doesn't get better than this. L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Mark Morris's masterpiece, is back in Britain after more than a decade. It's still glorious: one of the finest works of 20th-century dance, and one of the most loved.’Press - Jenny Gilbert, Independent on Sunday
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
‘More fascinating still is Morris's ability to encompass both a literal and abstract reading at once. His response to Milton's melancholy "sweet bird" (direct precursor, surely, of Keats's nightingale), is not just to have a series of dancers mimic bird behaviour (cocking heads, preening feathers), but also to embody the music's stratospheric trills, quivering with exquisite tension like the soprano's vocal cords, visualised soundwaves, or the nerve-tingling feeling we have as we listen.’Press - Clement Crisp, Financial Times
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
***** ‘Morris is, at once, the most sophisticated and the most innocent of dance-makers: he hears music, finds a way to make it flesh, and shows us this, a disarming simplicity masking a goldsmith’s mastery.’Press - Sarah Crompton, Telegraph
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
"By the time Mark Morris’s dancers ran rapidly downstage, holding hands like blithe angels, at the conclusion of this glorious piece, my jaw ached with smiling. There aren’t many dance works that are a pure joy from beginning to end, but this one is."
Press - Debra Craine, Times
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
***** ‘Morris’s response to Handel’s music is startlingly alive; it flows like balm to a troubled soul, full of warmth and wonderment, humour and joy, sorrow and sleep , for all the vicissitudes of life are here.’Press - Judith Mackrell, Guardian
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
***** ‘Morris's choreography has never looked more luminous, and is wonderfully served by the spirited pulse of ENO's orchestra, under Jane Glover, and the power of the four singers.’Press - Sarah Frater, Evening Standard
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
**** ‘Morris’s response to Handel’s music is not so much an interpretation as a visual and dynamic realisation of its themes.’Press - BBC Radio 3, Nightwaves
Performance: 14 - 17 April 2010
Discussion with Mark Baldwin, Alistair Spalding & Ismene Brown. (Starts at 32 mins in)
