Hybrid
"Out Loud, a Memoir"
by Mark Morris and Wesley Stace
Penguin Press, New York, 2019
This book is a cross between an autobiography by dancer, choreographer, dance company director and opera stager Morris and a biography of Morris by novelist and recording artist Stace. I am fairly familiar with Morris's work but had not before encountered any of Stace's. The writing took place when Morris (born 29 August 1956) was 62 years old - mature but, presumably, not at career's end.
There are 14 chapters plus a prologue. The early chapters about Morris's childhood, growing up and dance training in Seattle are a very American story. I had to keep reminding myself it wasn't Jerome Robbins about whom I was reading. Beginning at age 9, Morris first studied Spanish dance. His mother took him to see performances and Jose Greco became the great example for him. Another eye opener was Russia's Bolshoi Ballet. Morris also trained in other "folk dance" forms such as Slavic, and in fencing. Eventually he took some ballet and modern dance classes too. Another love for Morris was music and he taught himself to read notation and play instruments. It was hard work, quite intense, but far from the balanced curricula and measured approach experienced by pupils at European dance academies.
Some of the writing in the book's early chapters is cutesy, but both Morris and the prose grow up. He takes himself on a tour of Europe and opts to make it as a dancer in New York, where he joins the "post-modern" dance scene, performing for others and doing his own dancing whenever possible. He is discovered, he thinks, by critic Arlene Croce who writes about him in The New Yorker magazine. Much of the rest of the book consists of creation and evolution stories about Morris dances and his dance group. These tales contain insights and wisecracks. There is much turbulence when he moves to Brussels to replace sensualist choreographer Maurice Bejart. He stays there from 1988 to 1991, then re-settles in New York.
Of the 71 works by Mark Morris mentioned in this book, only a few are examined in detail. However, his "Sylvia" isn't even listed. It was a remarkably conventional staging for San Francisco Ballet in 2004 and was reviewed favorably by Croce. Before choreographing his version, Morris, of course, had listened to the Leo Delibes music but also looked at a film of the traditional Paris Opera staging of "Sylvia" by Lycette Darsonval. For me, the highpoint of the Parisian version is the entrance of the goddess Diana's huntress nymphs, their bows and arrows drawn. I've always wondered whether this entrance was the idea of Louis Merante, the ballet's original choreographer in 1876 and whether it inspired the famous entrance of the Shades in Marius Patipa's 1877 "La Bayadere". Moreover, did Morris see a connection between the huntress nymphs and the Chinese Communist ballet "Red Detachment of Women" with its gun toting females on pointe? Morris quotes choreography from "Red Detachment" in his and Peter Sellars's production of John Adams's opera "Nixon in China" and claims to love that ballet.
The last piece by Morris that receives major attention in this book is his 2017 "Pepperland" to music by The Beatles. By then he wasn't dancing regularly anymore but doing more conducting. The book doesn't peter-out although it dwindles. I hope that Mark Morris will continue working for some time to come!
(Erratum. On page 164 the ballet "Pas de Quatre" is credited to choreographer Mikhail Fokine. It was originally made in 1845 by choreographer Jules Perrot to Pugni's music. 20th Century re-creations have been by Keith Lester and by Anton Dolin.)
