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THE LEADING MEN OF ABT IN A NEW BALLET BY MARK MORRIS
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"The chance to work with these four gentlemen who are spectacular and brilliant and to do just a little dance that isn't just about fireworks and personality, but is actually about the construction of a piece of music -- making up a dance for them specifically is what drew me to this," Morris says in the show.
The Schumann had been in the back of his mind for years as a potential musical score for his modern dance group. First, however, he decided to use the last movement of the piano quintet for the all-male quartet; in his mind, it is complete.
"We had to have something that was just under eight minutes long, and I didn't want it to be a pastiche and have it be the Cuban guy, the Wisconsin guy -- I didn't want it to be 'around the world with the boys of ABT,' " Morris says. "I wanted it to be an actual composition that was that long that would feature all of them. So I thought, Hurray! Let me just use this beautiful last movement."
In BORN TO BE WILD, Morris' rehearsal assistant Tina Fehlandt (you can observe her behind the four men in the studio, meticulously learning each role) explains the choreographer's resistance to the same old ballet tricks. "He doesn't want that extra pirouette that's going to make the piece go off the music," she says. For Morris, ballet technique "is, of course, only there to allow the artist to do whatever he or she wants to do, at the appropriate moment in the appropriate amount."
What that translates into is an exceptionally complex, stylish ballet that is harder than it may at first appear. The way Morris plays with and against the music -- and the way these four dancers conquer it -- is mesmerizing. Even though Morris has created a wealth of ballets for companies around the world, he is known primarily as a modern-dance choreographer. But he's not just good because he can do both so well, he's great because he can do everything -- and in the process, dream up something entirely new.
Top banner photos: Angel Corella as Conrad's Slave in ABT's 1999 production of "Le Corsaire"; Jose Manuel Carreño, Ethan Stiefel, Vladimir Malakhov, and Angel Corella (photo by Don Perdue); Vladimir Malakhov. |
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Vladimir Malakhov, Jose Carreño, Ethan Stiefel, and Angel Corella (photo by Howard Schatz). |
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Choreographer Mark Morris. |
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