Dixit Dominus reviews? Mark Morris reviews more Renouf reviews Renee's web site

Mark Morris came on the dance scene comparatively fast, and something like a comet. In the last decade he has enjoyed a MacArthur Fellowship - "the genius award" and had a book written about him by one of the most articulate American dance writers currently active, Joan Acocella, now reviewing for "The New Yorker." To me that's pretty heady brew.

I have enjoyed his choice of music and elements of his folk dance background in his dances. He has created some works, wonderfully goofy - and his impersonation of Cupid to romantic English songs was both adroit but also one of the best examples of refined high camp ever choreographed. There is something engaging about such foolishness when supported by a keen musical instinct, the comedy is arch and the manner consistent with the sentiment of the period.

He also has done well by some of his collaborators: Baryshnikov and Yo-Yo Ma are names not to be sneezed at.

This spring season, CAL Performance audiences got a premiere to George Friderick Handel's Dixit Dominus, with superb musical support from the American Bach Soloists and members of the Berkeley Symphony. It was preceded by Morris' reading of New Love Song Waltzes and Love Song Waltzes, Johannes Brahms' Liebesliederwaltzen Op 65 and 53 with the same soloists who later graced "Dixit Dominus."

Morris has every right to create his own version of music treated previously with enormous distinction by Charles Weidman and George Balanchine. Unfortunately, the Morris treatment kept reminding me of those two interpretations rather than marveling in Morris' uses of social colloquialism, some of which were gauche and some distinctly gross. I don't think choreography or dancers are served by costuming which emphasize the lack of ideal proportions or which easily display the peculiarly vulnerable part of the leg above the back of the knee and lower thigh, especially when it is neither ideally formed or lean. There are two schools of thought about choreography: one that while the choreographer has the right to challenge a dancer he has an obligation to make the dancer look good and the other is the choreographer's message is so important that the dancer had better go along with it, some hell or high water. In this set of dances I got the feeling Morris belongs to the latter approach.

Dixit Dominus was graced by superb musicians and a great rendering of Handel's composition. If one has seen Paul Taylor's Aureole many of the constructs, use of dancers and thematic developments have their origin in Taylor's gentle liberties with baroque sonorities. Morris' dancers are earnest and spirited, but the choreographic patterns are not unique and the costuming did not substantially expand Handel's musical theme. Indeed, Morris seems particularly intent to depict casual coupling with a variety of gender variations.

The audience, however, thought it all amazing, and it provided Morris the opportunity to come forward with embracing gestures and, I think, even the Hindu gesture of greeting. It's a pity that my memory harbors other choreographic antecedents.