For choreographer, actions speak louder than words

Thursday, April 25, 1996

Timeless classic ‘Orfeo’ to play at Wiltern Theater

By Elizabeth Bull

Daily Bruin Contributor

World famous choreographer Mark Morris has a challenge for UCLA
students.

"We hardly ever perform in L.A. because they don’t have the
attention spans," he explains. "That’s what you can tell the
students so they will come to the show ­ to prove they can sit
through it."

Morris, who is directing and choreographing the opera "Orfeo ed
Euridice" by composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, doesn’t have much
to say about his new production.

"I can’t describe anything that is art. To explain my dancing,
I’d have to actually dance," he says.

Morris seems almost secretive about what he’s created for the
dancing, singing and direction for the show.

"I don’t want to give anything away because it takes actually
experiencing a work of art to get anything from it," he says.
"Hearing or reading about something doesn’t really work. It has to
happen at the time, in the theater. I cannot express it any other
way."

"Orfeo ed Euridice," a classical tale about love and myth, plays
this weekend at the Wiltern Theater. A collaboration between
conductor Christopher Hogwood of the Handel & Haydn Society and
the Mark Morris Dance Group, the production hopes to reenact
Gluck’s original innovation and push the 1762 opera into the
’90s.

"The story is excellent and beautiful and timeless," Morris
says. "It was my intention to unify the various media in the way
that Gluck intended. The singing, story, dancing and playing all
combine to create his universal message."

Morris and Hogwood began working on the opera two years ago,
combining choreography with the original music to create a
neoclassical design that gives the dancers freedom in movement.

"It’s choreographed quite non-specifically in that the dancers
can do something or not or do something on one leg or the other,"
he explains. "There are certain choices dealt in so the performance
doesn’t exactly repeat itself every night and the performers have
to stay involved. There is a certain openness to the
structure."

Morris credits his choreography to Gluck’s original music which
startled many critics in the 18th century with its simplicity and
clarity.

"The music is very concise ­ there isn’t a lot of extra
padding. It’s pretty short, to the point and clear," he says. "This
makes it extremely difficult to choreograph. Because the formula of
the music is quite simple people assume it would be easy to create
something incredibly dull and I don’t think I did that."

This sense of individuality and improvisation has followed
Morris ever since he started his dance group in 1980. Morris, who
has choreographed for the San Francisco Ballet, the Paris Opera
Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre, treats every piece as
separate and works to show an idea of truth through dance.

"I never try to better myself. I just make up what I think is
appropriate so every work is a different ride ­ a different
experience.

"I work very hard but I still cannot promise a great
masterpiece. I just tell the truth as I see it."

OPERA: "Orfeo ed Euridice" plays at the Wiltern Theater Friday
and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. $13 for students with
valid ID. For more information call (310) 825-2101.

(Choreographer Mark) Morris … treats every piece as separate
and works to show an idea of truth through dance.