The Aging of a Modern Classic

Heavenly bodies orbit harmoniously around the human comedy in Mark Morris’s “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato,” an evening-length dance visualizing Handel’s oratorio to John Milton’s poems of the same name. The work is among Mr. Morris’s earliest pieces still performed with regularity, and as his troupe’s performance Thursday night at the New York State Theater made clear, it continues to loom as a modern classic – in spite of the rather self-congratulatory coffee-table book put out a few years back.“L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato” epitomizes Mr. Morris’s awareness of the big themes (life, art, happiness, and death) as they are captured in simple, expansive phrases. With “linked sweetness long drawn out,” Mr. Morris’s dancers step out the cadences of Milton’s poetry, which weighs the advantages of an active life (“L’Allegro”) versus a contemplative one (“il Penseroso”); the third alternative (“il Moderato”) comes from Handel’s 1740 libretto by Charles Jennens. The dancers revolve in stage-wide concentric circles or else smaller enchainments, fulfilling the ancient role of the Muses, who, by joining hands, unified the arts. The word “music,” after all, originally meant just that: things related to the activity of the Muses – dance, music, and song.The music on Thursday night was provided by the Riverside Choral Society Chamber Singers and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, along with four superb soloists: tenor Iain Paton, bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams, and sopranos Christine Brandes and Dominique Labelle. The oratorio presents opposing images side by side: the countryside and the city, the sun and the moon, the lark and the nightingale. Mr. Morris’s own temperament as a choreographer allows him to capitalize on these abrupt changes, following passages of exquisite pathos with outlandish satire and wit.One section closes with the image of men hugging one another (“Then as I wake, sweet music breathe, / Above, about, or underneath”). Suddenly, a surge of violins and woodwinds strikes up as the performers realize what they’ve done and slap each other, steal a kiss, or skip merrily around, eurhythmically spanking each other’s backsides.In other words, the height of solemnity is traded for the height of camp. Clearly there is a strong sense of play, or dress-up, in the dancers’ behavior, deployed with an innocent candor that can be ingratiating to watch. Christine van Loon’s bright, loose-fitting costumes (two-ply dresses for the women, blouses or tunic tops for the men) scallop in the breeze as they prance and roughhouse in childlike shenanigans.Not all the sections succeed equally, however, nor is the passage of time evenly favorable to some of Mr. Morris’s more recognizable quirks. His strictly imitative scenes at times resemble low-grade theater – what in public education used to be called “oral forensics.” In the round of Milton’s famous “Come, and trip it as ye go,” for example, the dancers hold their arms roundly to the vowel sound of “come,” tap their toes to the verb and indicate a direction with a raised finger for “go.” Once meant to charm or jolt, sections such as these no longer do either. To a large extent, audiences have become habituated to his style of pure-dance theater, and, as a result, some sections look surprisingly dated.But Mr. Morris shows particular strength in Handel’s penultimate fugue, set to the final lines of each poem – “And I with thee will choose to live” – and accompanied by an organ and soprano voice. Here the beauty and originality of the dancing transcends its maker.The company enters from opposite sides of the stage, resembling a communion line in Catholic Mass. The dancers scatter once they approach where the altar would be, looking up in amazement. Without being churchy, the scene depicts the universal experience of being caught in wonder and reverence for something great besides ourselves.The majority of the ensemble exits, but two couples remain. Obscured by another scrim, they re-enact the old mysteries: of prayer, doubt, disobedience, and ultimately fellowship. As one tries to escape, soon the others follow, culminating in the fine image of each woman extending her leg in flight and leaning forward while her man restrains her. Together, they discover a mutual balance. They dip and stride in tandem, struggling and exploratory, vastly weaving and bobbing, sealed in an embrace.Earlier in his career, Mr. Morris was at the vanguard of a new sincerity. Simply by meaning what he did, introducing a vocabulary emphasizing gesture and built on a serious engagement with music, he healed a rift between mid-century modernist dance and the politicized, conceptual works of the 1960s and 1970s (Lucinda Child’s dictum “No more spectacle!” comes to mind). “L’Allegro” epitomizes Mr. Morris’s view of dance as a shared occasion. Its blithe sense of utopian togetherness doesn’t wash with our sympathies as it might have when it premiered nearly 15 years ago, but perhaps that is just why we need Mark Morris.

The Aging of a Modern Classic

The Aging of a Modern Classic

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