Before ballet got pointy and athletic, it must have looked something like Mark Morris’s V.
The short piece set to Schumann’s Quintet in E flat major has ballet’s chevrons and patterning, as well as its speed and synchronicities, but it also has an ease and expressiveness that have been squeezed by the modern mania for high extensions and extreme turn-out.
The US choreographer conjures a hush-lush mix of rounded gestures and low‑key leaps combined with gossamer gallantries and sly visual jokes. His creations, and choice of music (always played live), leave you with a sense of possibility rather than the overwhelming awe you can get with ballet. It is a joy to watch and it sent the audience home happy last night at the close of the first of two Morris programmes.
Despite its bright costumes and Charles Ives’s often jaunty Trio for violin, cello and piano, Morris’s new Empire Garden has a sombre undertow. The dancers remind you of soldiers and while Morris wouldn’t do anything so obvious as depict a battlefield, its futilities are clear.
Bookended by V and Empire Garden is the larky, luxuriant Bedtime from 1992. German speakers will best appreciate the Schubert songs to which it is set, but even if you aren’t a German speaker, Morris’s choreography sweetly evokes the subtlest of slumber jokes.
The dancers are all excellent, as are the musicians and singers. The only grumble is the humdrum costumes. These are variants on the modern-dance-trouser-and-top combo that is due a rethink.
Prog 1 tomorrow and Saturday. Prog 2 tonight and Friday (0844 412 4300, www.sadlerswells.com).
Mark Morris Dance Group: Programme One (Bedtime/V/Empire Garden)
Sadler's Wells
Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN
