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Mark Morris Dance Group, Sadler's Wells, London

A disciplined cast do justice to the magic of Morris dances

Zo Anderson
Wednesday 19 October 2005 00:00 BST
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Morris's best dances use the whole group, the whole world dancing. Witty, bleak or lyrical, his dancers are full-bodied and frank, limbs and torsos lifted by the pulse of the music. Somebody's Coming To See Me Tonight, a London premiere, is danced to a series of numbers by the Civil War songwriter Stephen Foster. They're Victorian ballads, and there's a social warmth in Morris's dances. Couples whirl about, hands on each other's shoulders - and then those hands whisk up and down again, a flirty bounce that catches the music's lilt.

Morris's musicality is his most famous quality; it's the starting-point for his dances, steps and patterns. The company has brought its own fine singers and musicians for this British tour. The dancers respond to the lift and spontaneity of live music, moving with brilliant dynamic variety. Skipping lightly through the Foster number, a dancer can start a jumping turn softly, then whip quickly out of it to the next step - the phrasing is diamond-sharp. Yet it all looks sociable, with the friendly warmth of a community dancing together.

In All Fours, to Bartók's Fourth String Quartet, the same dancers are cool, sleek and hard. When they stand in groups, swinging their arms, they look abandoned and contained - torsos flung forward as if ready for lift-off, the swung arms fiercely controlled. Around them, Nicole Pearce's lighting changes from red to blue, bodies lit from the front or silhouetted against gold. Four soloists, in cream, stalk in for a quartet, snapping into poses, holding them, moving on. In a pizzicato movement, the dancers' feet skitter and dart, springing from note to plucked note.

The Tamil Film Songs in Stereo pas de deux is a broad comedy, set to a tape of Indian music. Gregory Nuber, an overbearing teacher, bosses Marjorie Folkman's nervous but assertive student, demonstrating steps with diva grandeur.

Grand Duo, made in 1993, is one of Morris's greatest works. Danced to Lou Harrison's duet for piano and violin, it has a driving, triumphant ferocity, like another Rite of Spring. Stamping, circling, pounding, the dancers look possessed by rhythms and patterns. One circle dance spirals off into two rings, breaking and reforming. As it breaks, the dancers look like leaves spun by the wind, a rigorous pattern with an effect of natural causes.

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