TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/091790/0917450.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 125 lines

                                                                                DANCE, Page 84

The Mark and Misha Show


Ballet meets modern as two stars launch an unlikely enterprise

By MARTHA DUFFY


     Sounds in the summer air:

    "The songbird yearned to sing a love song . . ."

    "Do you need a beverage or a minuet?"

    "We are all sexless, like a line of alphabet letters in a
classroom."


    Welcome to White Oak Plantation, an outpost of paradise that
slipped the Lord's notice when he expunged the rest of Eden.
Gazelles and antelope play here. Tigers roam. In the streams
black-necked swans bob through the absurdities of their mating
ritual. Perhaps even Terpsichore darts about in the shadows,
inspiring a menagerie of humans who have come to the plantation
to prepare an innovative evening of dance.

    White Oak is a 7,500-acre estate along the St. Marys River,
which separates part of Georgia and Florida. Presided over by
Howard Gilman, who owns the Gilman Paper Co., this preserve --
part breeding farm for endangered animals, part Thoroughbred
stables -- could be described as either utopian or feudal.
Through the years Gilman has nurtured the wildlife program,
which includes 26 species of mammals and 30 varieties of birds,
like a latter-day Sun King. Gilman has also been an
enthusiastic patron of dance, and when his friend Mikhail
Baryshnikov was looking for a good spot to prepare a tour of
new works by his friend, choreographer Mark Morris, Gilman
decided to pitch in. Within three weeks he had an
air-conditioned studio flung up, with a nice springy floor and
sophisticated lighting -- for dancers, Shangri-La.

    The Baryshnikov-Morris tour, scheduled for 17 U.S. cities
in October and November, would seem about as likely a
partnership as the owl and the pussycat. Baryshnikov, 42, the
pre-eminent male dancer of the 1970s and '80s, defined the
great classical ballet roles. Morris, 34, is a brilliant and
somewhat unruly postmodern choreographer. Baryshnikov dances
"up," every graceful move a dismissal of gravity. Morris, a
marvelous performer as well, is blunt and emphatic. Where the
one leaps high, the other stamps down, like the folk dancer he
was as a teenager.

    After resigning as artistic director of American Ballet
Theater a year ago, Baryshnikov thought of quitting dancing
too. But despite chronic knee problems, he admits, "it's
neither easy nor pleasant to leave the stage. I never thought
I'd spend my last years as a modern dancer, but it's important
now to work with someone I admire." He had danced Morris' work
earlier and spotted him as someone who saw dance the way he
did, musically. "Mark decodes a composer's thought,"
Baryshnikov says. "He uses dance like an extra instrument." As
for Morris, he seized on "Misha's" special lyricism at once:
"He's a fabulous phraser, and I really do think he is that
strange poet in Les Sylphides."

    In the studio Morris is the galvanizing leader. Tossing his
long black curls, he tears into every move, often with a soda
can in hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. "Shall we
start with the frustrating part or the even more frustrating
part just ahead of it?" he asks his eight dancers, speaking of
a passage in a rather classical-looking piece he is setting to
a showy swatch of Saint-Saens. When people start tiring, he is
reluctant to lose momentum, but when he offers a choice of
beverages or minuets in mock airline-ese, the choice is soft
drinks. The ensemble work looks odd at first because Morris
rarely distinguishes between men and women. Boy may lift girl,
or another boy. The dancers love it.

    Beside the effervescent Morris, Baryshnikov is rather
severe, intently examining the image in the mirror when he is
dancing, contemplating Morris with a fixed eye when he isn't.
His gaze looks critical, but that's not the case. "I try to
figure out the way he works and anticipate him," Ba ryshnikov
says cheerfully. "But I never do."

    One rehearsal session is devoted to a little nifty called
Going Away Party, set to Bob Wills' country-and-western songs.
As the dancers, who have never performed together before, try
to get the dynamics of the piece into their bones, Merle
Haggard's voice drawls out Yearning and its songbird over and
over. The steps speed up; at one point a square dance veers
scarily into a frantic game of musical chairs.

    To anyone who observes the brio of these rehearsals, as well
as the total lack of temperamental combustion, it seems clear
that there is the embryo of a new troupe here. For dance fans
the notion is very attractive. Things are stale now in both
ballet and modern dance. The prolific Morris -- who says, "I
can make up a thousand steps; my problem is deciding what to
keep" -- has shown an affinity for classical movement. It could
be a dream linking. Baryshnikov, however, doesn't think a White
Oak Company is in the cards. Speaking of dancers in the group,
he says, "We're a group of company leavers. Kate Johnson left
Paul Taylor, Rob Besserer left Lar Lubovitch, others left Boston
Ballet." Nevertheless, if the fall outings are successful, the
group will tour in the spring of 1991, perhaps including
Europe.

    Right now the program is set with the same four pieces each
evening, Baryshnikov dancing all performances. Will it stay
that way? Don't bet on it. Looking out over a dappled glade
that leads down to the river, Morris says, "I like to see
people do what they're not expected to do. I like to see how
slow things relate to fast things, I like charged-up rhythm.
One reason I make up dance concerts is that then I have
something to watch that I like." A thousand steps onward.