DANCE
No Holding Back for Mark Morris
A deeply feeling, funny, not a little fabulous choregrapher
BY CHRISTOPHER MURRAY
Mark Morris’ just-published
memoir “Out
Loud” — which impressively
manages
to make adept use of the word
“eggshelly” — charts the 63-yearold
choreographer’s life’s from his
childhood in the Pacifi c Northwest
through his amazing ascendency
to become arguably the most recognizable
choreographer of our
time.
This October saw his company,
the Mark Morris Dance Group,
perform in the 16th annual Fall
For Dance Festival at City Center;
his 2007 production of the Gluck
opera “Orfeo ed Eurydice” runs
at the Metropolitan Opera though
November 10; and his company’s
production of “Pepperland ,” celebrating
the 50th anniversary of
the Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band,” will
be at Washington’s Kennedy Center
November 13-16. In December,
“The Hard Nut,” his now classic
reimagining of “The Nutcracker,”
will be presented by the Seattle
Theatre Group .
Morris has always been a busy
bee. His Fort Greene, Brooklynbased
Mark Morris Dance Center
is the offi cial home of his company,
but also functions as an incredibly
vibrant community center,
offering dozens of classes a week
to professional dancers — and to
adults and kids from the community,
as well — almost all of them
presented with live musicians,
since 1996. Morris himself is often
called a musician, not because he
plays an instrument but because
his connection to musical texts
from cultures all over the world is
so profound. The New York Times
once dubbed him “the most artfully
musical choreographer alive.”
Morris’ friend the composer Nico
Muhly told me, “Before I’d seen
Mark’s work, I never understood
the power of a choreographer to
simultaneously translate, illuminate,
and transform a score. When
I fi rst saw his ‘L’Allegro,’ I felt as if
I’d found an extra room inside my
Choreographer Mark Morris has just published his memoir, “Out Loud,” co-written with Wesley Stace.
apartment.”
In the new memoir, co-written
with author and musician Wesley
Stace, Morris reveals himself
as deeply feeling, funny, and not
a little fabulous. I asked his bestie
Isaac Mizrahi to tell me about
Morris as a fabulous homosexual
and in an email he wrote back
with a few quirky zaps of insight:
“I don’t see Mark as a straight or
a gay artist. I see him as a great
artist whose work speaks to everyone.
The greatness of Mark’s work
is how the gay themes that do appear
are so well integrated into
the body of the piece in question.
I can’t think of one of his dances
that’s ONLY about gay themes. He
is a fabulous homosexual because
whilst being radical (relatively, for
his time), he manages to live in the
world that exists. Weirdly, I think
BEOWULF SHEEHAN
of him more as a feminist than as
a fabulous homosexual, though he
is that. I think of Mark more as a
woman, as a friend to women than
anything else.”
Sanjoy Roy in The Guardian
wrote, “Mark Morris is equal parts
diva and democrat — a big, mouthy
guy who dominates his company
but also likes his dancers to be individuals.
He is one big bundle of
contrasts: louche and refi ned, oldfashioned
and avant-garde, spiritual
and spunky.”
Here are excerpts from my recent
conversation with Morris.
CHRISTOPHER MURRAY: Why
did you write the book?
MARK MORRIS: Somebody
had to. The last book about me
was Joan Acocella’s from 1993,
“Mark Morris.” That went up to the
end of my time in Brussels. There’s
another half of my life so far which
hadn’t been covered. I met Wesley
with whom I wrote it and we hit it
off. He said, “Your stories are interesting,”
which was nice because
people I know have heard them all
so many times. We really worked
on the whole thing together. It was
very much collaborative.
MURRAY: What do you want
people to get out of the book?
MORRIS: I can’t decide that.
What they should get out of it is
the story, which is my story. I have
a pretty interesting life and history.
I’m direct and frank, hence
the title. Laughs. It’s a doorstop
if anything. I want people to get
out what I put in. It’s me in this
scene. There aren’t a lot of choreographers
for one thing, so they
all have a different perspective and
this is mine.
MURRAY: It’s so impressive that
you have been able to build your
building, the Mark Morris Dance
Center. You stand pretty much
alone as a working choreographer
in that. It’s such a community center.
I was very glad to tour it and
see how much life and excitement
and connection to the community
it has.
MORRIS: Oh that’s just great. A
lot of people don’t know that. Legacy
enough is this building and the
school. To leave the book and some
other stuff is good. And I’m not dying
anytime soon.
MURRAY: So, what do you consider
your gay artistic lineage?
MORRIS: I don’t even know, because
how do we know from history
who was gay? Joan Acocella’s book
talks about me in my 20s, coming
out to anyone who would listen. I
did that at the time because, well,
for one thing, I was so obvious, but
also because not everybody was as
confi dent or comfortable or felt able
to come out. I knew a lot of dancers
and choreographers, specifi cally
gay men, and everybody was kind
➤ MARK MORRIS, continued on p.33
November 7 - November 20, 32 2019 | GayCityNews.com
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