Centennial Hall will be illuminated with life and vigor this Friday night as live music and live dance join forces and take to the stage.
This weekend marks the next installment of UApresents’s season with a performance by Mark Morris Dance Group. Hailed as one of the most prominent modern dance companies in the nation, Mark Morris Dance Group is known for delivering an incredible display of beauty, athleticism, charisma and unparalleled musicality.
Formed in 1980, the dance group takes its name from its founder and choreographer, Mark Morris, whom critics have dubbed one of the most inventive and lyrically inspiring artists of his time.
Recognized worldwide for his dedication to expressing musical quality and nuance through movement, Morris’s popularity extends far outside the modern dance scene. He has created works for many ballet companies including American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet. Morris has also been highly influential within the opera circuit, choreographing for such companies as the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, Royal Opera House and English National Opera. Morris’s prestige in the dance world even led him overseas, where he served as the Director of Dance for the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels from 1988 to 1991. In 1990, Morris also teamed up with ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov to form the White Oak Dance Project, another highly celebrated dance company.
Since its establishment, Morris has created more than 120 works for the company, presenting audiences with original and entertaining choreography. In highlighting each work’s harmonious union to its musical score, live musical accompaniment has also been a distinctive element to every performance of Mark Morris Dance Group’s international tour since 1996, a tour which has spanned the globe including Israel, Russia, Japan and the United Kingdom.
On Friday, Mark Morris Dance Group will give UApresents audiences a taste of its original repertoire, performing three of Morris’ valued works. The night’s program will begin with the recently premiered “”Visitation,”” which creates a visual portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “”Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102 No. 1.”” The music of Béla Bartók will follow with the company’s presentation of “”All Fours.”” Finally, “”V”” will breathe life into Robert Schumann’s “”Quintet in E flat for piano and strings, Op. 44.””
With grace and imagination, Mark Morris Dance Group works to meld music with dance, disguising the line between the two art forms and challenging audiences to find where the music begins and the movement ends.
— Dallas Williamson
