Mark Morris Dance Group has left its home base in Brooklyn for its spring tour, which will bring the company to the Shubert Theatre next weekend, courtesy of the FleetBoston Celebrity Series and the Wang Center for the Performing Arts. Unlike your average impoverished modern-dance troupe, which scrambles nomad-like from one rented studio to another, MMDG now owns a light-infused five-story building with the Brooklyn Academy of Music as a neighbor. Although it’s not unusual to find a major ballet company ensconced in a large and beautiful building (like the Clarendon Street palace that Graham Gund built for Boston Ballet), among contemporary troupes such digs are unique.
Morris has not been keeping this largesse to himself. Boasting three studios, an extensive gym, a resident physical therapist, and generous office and storage space, the building is constantly in use. Speaking over the phone from Brooklyn, he talks about its schedule. " I have a school of 300ish students, most of whom are kids from the immediate neighborhood. The studios are available to other companies when we’re on the road or when there’s a studio available, renting for $8 to $10 an hour. So we provide what we were not provided with. " When the building first opened, I recall that he was most ecstatic about the showers in the dressing rooms, something that’s unheard of in most rented spaces.
Teaching company class starts each day for Morris. He describes his ballet-based method as " anatomically correct. I know more about anatomy than a lot of ballet teachers. So it’s smart; it’s about music and training and warming up for the day. " When he offers class to outside dancers, as he did in a five-day intensive session last month, he limits the numbers to 45. " I get a lot of customers when I teach. "
But Morris mostly spends his time on choreography. At 46, he’s still performing, but in ways that set him apart from his 18 dancers, who are now a generation behind him. He’s just finished a new solo for himself set to " beautiful Lou Harrison music for guitar and percussion. I’ll preview the work in Fairfax, Virginia, and premiere it at BAM at the end of March. " There’s also a new piece for the company that’s due to premiere in the fall; it’s set to Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet " because I’ve loved the music forever. " This summer he’ll do a teaching residency at Tanglewood that’ll include two performances with Yo-Yo Ma (June 29 and 30) and then a week at Jacob’s Pillow (July 2 through 6) before stopping at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Then it’s off to California, where in August he’ll start work on a full-length Sylvia (music by Delibes) for San Francisco Ballet that’s scheduled to premiere next spring. He’s also been talking to Boston Ballet about new works — " but I’m awfully booked, " he warns.
The program for his four Shubert appearances next weekend (Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8, Sunday at 3) includes a reprise of V, which is set to the Robert Schumann Piano Quintet; we saw it here last year. There’s also the goofy C&W piece Going Away Party (music by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys), New Love Song Waltzes (to Brahms’s Neue Liebeslieder Walzer), and Foursome (to music by Satie and Hummel), a Boston premiere for a quartet of men in which Morris himself will perform. As usual, the Morris entourage includes not only dancers and a road crew but his own musicians, another luxury for a modern-dance company. " I bring my own people because they do it the way we want. "
And there’s a bonus: this Monday, March 10, Morris will engage in a " conversation " to discuss the " creative process " with Christopher Lydon at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. " I think creative process is a sort of catch-all term, " he explains. " In my case it means making up dances. "
Mark Morris Dance Group will perform at the Shubert Theatre March 13 through 16 Tickets are $25 to $60; call Telecharge.com at (800) 447-7400 or go to wwww.celebrityseries.org, or stop by the Shubert box office. " Morris on the Move " takes place March 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Sanders Theatre. Admission is free, but tickets are required (limit two per person): go to the Harvard Box Office in the Holyoke Center Arcade, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, or call — in which case there’s $3 service charge per ticket — (617) 496-2222.
