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EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY EVENTS
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Photography Exhibition: Created to celebrate Mark Morris's enduring work in its 20th year, Hidden Soul of Harmony: Mark Morris's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato is a photography exhibition featuring the works of Stephanie Berger and Susana Millman. In April and May, their wonderful photographs can be seen in the windows of Zellerbach Hall lobby mezzanine. Also be sure not to miss the light box photographs in the downstairs lobby facing the portico.
Mark Morris in Conversation: On May 26 at 8 pm, Mark Morris and Cal Performances director Robert Cole will hold an onstage conversation at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center. They will talk about Morris's dances, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and other Cal Performances favorites including The Hard Nut and Dido and Aeneas. Tickets cost $10-$18. The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco is at 3200 California St. Call 415.292.1233 or go to www.jccsf.org/arts for more information.
L'Allegro at 20 multi-part video
Slideshow
Photo Gallery
MMDG L'Allegro at 20 site
"Among the happiest and most endearing works American dance has seen...there is no question that it is a masterpiece."
— San Francisco Chronicle
"A masterwork on a scale hardly known in the U.S. outside the field of classical ballet."
— Wall Street Journal
"A glorious outpouring of dance invention and humanistic imagery...impelled the audience at the end into a roaring standing ovation."
— The New York Times
(Read the full review)
(gathered via email from past Cal Performances appearances)
"Moving, funny, gorgeous, inventive, one of my favorite of all the Mark Morris pieces. The joining of Handel and Morris, surprising and inspired, makes for great dance, great theater, great listening. My spirit soared when I first saw L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and it soars in anticipation of seeing it again."
"The divine and the sublime, a masterwork of aesthetics in dancing, music, visuals, intellect. Bravi!"
"From Milton to Handel to Mark Morris, an eternal golden thread."
"My favorite moment is the Finale. The energy and joy that each dancer presents if amazing!"
"Mark Morris, the genius of culture of our time, never fails to make one laugh aloud while one is in the midst of soaring toward the promise that this amalgam of beauty and art and dance and music always delivers. This is the real thing: joy!"
"I saw L'Allegro about 3 years ago, and I still talk about the experience as being one of the highlights of decades of theater-going. Mark Morris' ability to create a sense of beautiful humanity in physical form is unparalleled, in my opinion."
"I remember vividly the elation I felt during this performance! My husband and I had somehow lucked into two front-row tickets, and we were almost close enough to touch Nick McGegan as he conducted. My spirit floated and romped with the dancers leaping so gloriously, so very close to us. I recalled Yeats' line—"who can tell the dancer from the dance?" I felt completely enveloped by the music, the dancers, the sheer joy of this piece."
"I love L'Allegro. My husband and I have seen it twice at Zellerbach, once from the Orchestra and once from the balcony. It was just as wonderful both times and in some ways a different show each time, seen from a different perspective. Well worth seeing over and over!"
"We love the program...the magnificent combination of music, singing and dance frees the spirit and lifts the soul. It is one of best programs of the year...not to be missed."
"I always choose to sit above the floor so that I can fully appreciate the patterns in this mesmerizing dance—the symmetry and the not-quite-symmetry, the large and the small groupings—with swirling skirts and flippy petticoats and billowing shirts flying through them all. It's sheer magic that hypnotizes me every time."
"If you can only see one large scale ballet piece this season, make it L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. I have seen this piece several times and i can't get enough. I am hoping to see it at least twice this time."
Special thanks from Cal Performances to all patrons who were willing to share their thoughts about L'Allegro with us. And congratulations to Perry Freeman who won a pair of tickets to see the May 29 performance of L'Allegro in a random drawing of entrants!
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MMDG DANCER REFLECTIONS ON
L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO ED IL MODERATO
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"[Out of all the sections in L'Allegro], I think the first pieces Mark did were reference pieces. 'Come and Trip It' is choreographed absolutely to the lyric. 'Haste Thee Nymph' he did early on...I think of those two pieces as being quintessential L'Allegro pieces. To me, you find whatever you're going to see in the rest of the dance in them."
— Tina Fehlandt, Founding MMDG dancer (1980-2000)
"When Mark started to show me the steps in 'Gorgeous Tragedy,' I realized that it was harder than it looked, as is all of Mark's work. It takes a lot dramatically and technically to sustain that dance. The parts...where I'm alone everything is on one leg or turning. In the beginning it was really difficult. So I started to read the libretto and talking with him about it — what it was about. The piece was about theater...I thought to conjure some great theatrical female character — like Lady Macbeth or person, like Dame Judi Dench. But technically, I [had] to practice the steps all the time. I feel like I [had] to put myself wholeheartedly into dancing L'Allegro."
— Ruth Davidson, Founding MMDG dancer (1980-2001)
"I was thinking about the [five] senses...touch was obvious because it's throughout L'Allegro. Hearing, there's a lot of this holding your hand to your ear like for the 'far-off Curfew sound' in 'Fireplace.' But then, I thought, there's no smell gesture. And then [in rehearsal] Mark reminded us that this gesture [fanning the dress behind our backs] in the knights and ladies section of 'Populous Cities' is not just being sexy and flirtatious with your skirt. Actually you're fanning pheromones out to your suitor. And I thought that's it. There is a smell gesture. Mark didn't necessarily put that in so he could complete the five senses, but it just comes naturally to him, to have that gusto for life that would naturally include all the senses."
— June Omura, MMDG dancer (1988-present)
"L'Allegro was the first Morris dance I ever performed, and I've always enjoyed returning to it because of the emotional depths and artistic riches it offers to those performing it. I hope that joy is instantly obvious to audiences. What's less obvious, perhaps, are the behind-the-scenes mishaps that lodge in the memory right next to those moments of artistic satisfaction. We were performing the piece at Lincoln Center in the summer of 2005. Despite the heat wave outside, the interior of State Theater was rather chilly thanks to industrial-strength air conditioning. I'd habitually put sweat pants on every time I came off stage to keep my legs warm. Right before I ran on to do my lark solo in Act I, I disrobed and tossed my sweat pants off stage. The lark dance takes a lot of focus—an intense commitment to being a bird and nothing else—but I couldn't help noticing with my human eyes that one of the sets was bouncing up and down 25 feet above my head, almost dancing to the music. There was also an unusual amount of yelling, which I found distracting. I tried to block out these oddities until I ran off stage at the end of my solo. It was especially crucial that I cover my legs now so that they wouldn't cool down too quickly after the intense exertion. But they weren't where I left them. In fact, they'd completely disappeared. Slowly, thanks to some grumbles from our technical director, a story began to develop in my panicked mind: I'd unintentionally tossed my sweatpants right into the fly system, which is responsible for lifting and lowering scrims. The sweatpants had gotten lodged in one of the bottom tension pulleys and had prevented the scenery from moving properly. There had been a lot of yelling and cursing as the crew in the fly rails tried to figure out what was wrong. Finally, the sweatpants had been torn from the belly of the fly system and tossed spitefully into a far corner of the backstage area. I was very unpopular with the technical crew that night—Mark wasn't too thrilled either—and it took me a while to forgive myself for being such a bird brain. But I'll also never get rid of those torn and sullied sweatpants. Like many happier memories of this glorious piece, they're tucked away for future reminiscence."
— David Leventhal, MMDG dancer (1997-Present)
"Keep in mind L'Allegro was first created on a raked* stage at Theatre De La Monnaie in Brussels. So, all of the lifting, circling, walking, running, and beautiful dancing were initially that much more difficult because the Dance Group hadn't performed much (if at all) on a raked stage."
— Joe Bowie (1989 - present)
* A "rake" or "raked stage" slopes upwards away from the audience in order to improve the view. On this type of stage, a dancer who is farther from the audience is higher than an dancer who is closer.
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