MODERN MASTERS TWO DANCE INNOVATORS COME TO UCLA.Byline: Vicki Smith Paluch Correspondent Once provocateurs, choreographers Mark Morris and Stephen Petronio Stephen Petronio is an artistic director, choreographer and dancer based in New York City. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1956, he later received a B.A. degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he began dancing in 1974. are still thought-provoking. Two of the most distinctive movers on the American modern American Modern was a distinct American design aesthetic formed in the period between 1925 and World War II. American Modern was created by a pioneering group of designers, architects and artists, among them were Norman Bel Geddes, Donald Deskey, Henry Dreyfuss, Paul Frankl, dance scene will be at UCLA's Royce Hall Royce Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Designed by the Los Angeles firm of Allison & Allison (James Edward Allison, 1870-1955, and his brother David Clark Allison, 1881-1962) in the Italian Romanesque Revival style and completed on successive weeks. Since 9-11, both choreographers have created their own love letters to Manhattan, where they and their art came of age. As part of its 20th anniversary tour, the Stephen Petronio Company will perform on Friday and Saturday his dance triptych - ``City of Twist,'' ``Broken Man'' and ``Island of Misfit mis·fit n. 1. Something of the wrong size or shape for its purpose. 2. One who is unable to adjust to one's environment or circumstances or is considered to be disturbingly different from others. Toys,'' which features music by Laurie Anderson For the author, see . Laurie Anderson (born Laura Phillips Anderson, on June 5 1947, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) is an American experimental performance artist and musician. and Lou Reed Lou Reed, born Lewis Allen Reed[1] March 2, 1942, is an American rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. Reed first found prominence as the guitarist and principal singer-songwriter of The Velvet Underground (1965-1973). , a set designed by artist Cindy Sherman and costumes by fashion designer Tara Subkoff. The following week, the Mark Morris Dance Group will perform a mixed bill (accompanied by live music) that includes the critically acclaimed ``V,'' which Morris dedicated to New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. when the work had its premiere just weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. ``We did not set out to have two sets of stories from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of ,'' says David Sefton, director of UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX Live. ``But their emergence is an interesting coincidence.'' Set to the Schumann Quintet in E flat major for piano and strings (Opus 44), ``V'' was created a month before the tragic events and was offered as Morris' way of helping New York heal. In Petronio's works, he collaborated with fellow downtown New York artists. ``These dances are cave paintings of New York life,'' Petronio says. ``Our lives were irrevocably changed - whether you lived in the city or not.'' He says he used to view New York as a ``greedy, selfish, dirty place,'' but after the attacks, he says, ``I got crazy, I was defensive and very protective. I grew up as an artist in New York. I wanted to celebrate what is Lower Manhattan.'' ``Where 'City of Twist' is light, humanistic, sincere and emotional,'' Petronio says, `` 'Island' is a gothic, abstract, and it's something I never thought I would do: illustrate the music.'' ``Island'' shows the darker side of the city, the evil below 14th Street. ``Lou's music is information below the surface,'' he says of seminal rock artist and Velvet Underground founder Reed. ``It deals with pedophilia pedophilia, psychosexual disorder in which there is a preference for sexual activity with prepubertal children. Pedophiles are almost always males. The children are more often of the opposite sex (about twice as often) and are typically 13 years or age or younger; , obsessions and addictions.'' ``Island'' includes Reed's musical composition for Edgar Allan Poe's ``The Raven,'' which is read by Willem Dafoe. ``Broken Man,'' which comes in the middle of the program, is Petronio's solo. It is his spiritual reawakening reawakening n → despertar m reawakening n → réveil m reawakening n → Wiedererwachen nt after a near career-ending accident when he broke his foot at age 45. The solo, he says, speaks more to his spiritual awakening. Before ``City of Twists,'' Petronio says his dances were about construction, form, speed and architecture. During the 1990s, he was one of the ``bad boys'' as he earned a reputation as a ``troublemaker.'' ``I was an abstract, post-modernist; now I'm flirting with meaning,'' says the 47-year-old choreographer. ``Mark Morris is more generally accepted by the establishment,'' Sefton says, comparing the two choreographers. ``Both are major figures in American dance, but I don't think Stephen is accorded his due.'' Morris was the most controversial choreographer of the 1980s. He was considered a smart-aleck who was biting and funny. In 1988, the company moved to Brussels as the resident company of the Belgian Royal Opera House, where Morris created his three full-length works, the now acclaimed ``Dido and Aeneas Dido and Aeneas with the gods demanding his departure, she commits suicide. [Rom. Lit.: Aeneid; Fr. Opera: Berlioz, The Trojans, Westerman, 174–176] See : Love, Tragic ,'' ``The Hard Nut'' and ``L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (HWV 55) is a pastoral ode by George Frideric Handel based on the poetry of John Milton. L'Allegro was composed in the winter of 1740 and premiered on the 27th of February at the Royal Theatre of Licoln's Inn Fields. .'' He co-founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1990, and was so longer seen as a bad boy. He returned in 1991 as a master. In what critics are calling a life-affirming masterpiece, Morris brings his full power of movement invention, formalism and unerring un·err·ing adj. Committing no mistakes; consistently accurate. un·err  ing·ly adv. devotion to music to bear on ``V.'' ``V'' is the first work Morris created in his center, which is the first built by a dance company with a single choreographer. Utilizing 14 of the company's 18 dancers, ``V'' is also the largest-scale dance he has ever created. Dance critic Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times says ``V'' is ``not only one of his best pieces in many years but also one of the few great works that modern dance has produced in a decade.'' Morris ``won't describe a dance.'' But he will discuss what attracts him to the music. ``Music is my sort of reason for doing what I do,'' he says. His choice for ``V,'' the Schumann Piano Quintet, is ``a miracle of composition,'' he says. Morris' choreography had to match the precision of Schumann's music as the two sets of seven dancers work with space, time and rhythm. ``Everything has to answer itself - and it has to stand up,'' he says. While Petronio does not choreograph to classical music (``I spend more time explaining why I don't choreograph to Bach than to why I work with pop artists like Lou Reed and Nick Cave''), Morris will follow his ear anywhere. The Mark Morris Dance Group will open with the 1990 romp ``Going Away Party,'' which is set to the Western swing music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Though Morris prides himself on always having his dancers perform to live accompaniment, ``Going Away Party'' is an exception. ``We have recorded music because they are all dead. The incredible Bob Wills can't be replaced. He invented Western swing,'' Morris says. The naughty funster in Morris will kick up its heels in his bawdy bawd·y adj. bawd·i·er, bawd·i·est 1. Humorously coarse; risqué. 2. Vulgar; lewd. bawd i·ly adv. romance, ``A Spell,'' a 1993 dance set to the wonderful and strange love songs of John Wilson. The company will also perform ``All Fours'' set to Bela Bartok's String Quartet No. 4. The dance, which received its premiere last fall at Berkeley, is based on Hungarian folk music Hungarian folk music includes a broad array of styles, including the recruitment dance verbunkos, the csárdás and nóta. To some extent, the music of ethnic Hungarian people and the music of the Roma in Hungary have been conflated, though the exact degree to which this has occurred . Says Morris: ``If you heard it on the radio, you might change the channel. But you shouldn't. It's beautiful, strident and surprising.'' STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY Where: UCLA Royce Hall, Westwood. When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets: $20 to $45. (310) 825-2101 or www.UCLALive.org. MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP Where: UCLA Royce Hall, Westwood. When: 8 p.m. Feb. 27-28. Tickets: $25 to $55. (310) 825-2101 or www.UCLALive.org. CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1) Jimena Paz kicks up a suddenly shoeless heel in one of the Stephen Petronio Company's modern dance pieces. The troupe appears Friday and Saturday at UCLA. (2) The Mark Morris Dance Group will bring ``V,'' its reaction to the 9-11 attacks, to Royce Hall. |
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