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Gangster Films, Coolly Revisited
Who but Mark Morris would take a George Balanchine standard and turn it into a hip bit of entertainment that both alludes to and turns its back on the original? Mr. Morris's new "Resurrection," a world premiere commissioned by the American Dance Festival here, is a sleek retooling of the American gangster movie, set, like Balanchine's "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," to that number from the Richard Rodgers musical "On Your Toes." It is also the perfect cool, sweet treat for a very hot summer. "Resurrection" looks terrific, with a slyly minimal set by Isaac Mizrahi that consists of a narrow midstage curtain made of strips of transparent plastic, lighted with teasing restraint by Michael Chybowski. Gangsters and their molls come and go through it to maximum effect, when they are not slipping out from and into the wings. Mr. Morris occasionally arranges his chorus of 14 in displays that suggest Busby Berkeley in a minimalist mood. That curtain might be described as anti-Berkeley. Mr. Mizrahi's costumes are even better: checked and striped pajamas that suggest a nifty version of prison duds. Best of all is the continual swirl of stage patterns as crisp as those fabrics. Dancers group and regroup in lines and circles, peeling off to form couples that then reassemble into a protean chorus, both the Hollywood and Greek-tragic kind. The dancers avert their eyes as the chief gangster shoots his girlfriend. (Think John Garfield paired with a determined but extra-fragile Joan Blondell.) She, of course, returns again and again in woebegone cross-stage bourrées, unwilling to die finally until she has shot her man dead, after which she crumples beside him. Naturally, both are resurrected, lifted up on the arms of the chorus for one last death-defying kiss and gaze out at the audience, in the grand Hollywood manner. With his fine ear for tone, Mr. Morris has married movie-musical excess with postmodernist cool. One member of the audience saw a persistent anti-romanticism in Mr. Morris's idiosyncratic choreographic style. Irony abounds. But dancers do interact as flesh-and-blood humans in Mr. Morris's recent "Foursome," though at some emotional distance. This fascinating dance — set to piano music by Erik Satie and Johann Nepomuk Hummel that was performed live, blessedly, by Ethan Iverson — is made up of the continuous shiftings of relationships and the points of the square formed by the four dancers (Shawn Gannon, John Heginbotham, Mr. Morris and Guillermo Resto). Mr. Morris uses the inherent qualities of each dancer with tender acuity. It is also a great pleasure to see comparative old-timers like Mr. Morris and the offhandedly warm-and-fuzzy Mr. Resto give the two gifted youngsters who complete the cast a run for their performing money. The program was completed by "Grand Duo," set to music by Lou Harrison, and "V," a Schumann post-Sept. 11 piece that is dedicated to New York City and suggests another kind of resurrection. FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Action on Aging distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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