On Thursday, October 20, 2022, BroadStage launched its 2022/2023 performance season with the World Premiere of choreographer Mark Morris’s evening-length The Look of Love. This evening of dance to the music of Burt Bacharach was co-commissioned by Broadstage. It reunited Morris and jazz composer Ethan Iverson and featured fourteen of the Bacharach’s hit songs during the 1960s and 1970s. Filling the stage with wonderful dancers in bright colored costumes, Morris proved that he is still a master craftsman of creating dances that visualize music from the inside out. The Look of Love almost succeeded at making sitting through an hour and a half of Bacharach songs palatable.
Morris has described himself as “a musician whose medium is dance” and his 42 years’ worth of repertoire backs up this claim. The small musical ensemble for The Look of Love included piano, bass, drums, trumpet and three singers. The incredibly talented lead singer, Marcy Harriell, brought her own interpretation to Bacharach songs, while honoring the vocals of Bacharach’s muse Dionne Warwick. Sadly, she had to compete with the too loud and often flat sounds produced by trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson.
Mark Morris Dance Group with lead singer Marcy Harriell and background vocalists Clinton Curtis and Blaire Reinhard – Photo by Skye Schmidt
After the overture song, Alfie, the curtain went up to reveal a circle of five chairs and a lone dancer who was soon joined by the entire cast moving to What the World Needs Now is Love. I will admit that it took me a few minutes to get past the array of glaring costumes by Isaac Mizrahi. I eventually saw that Mizrahi’s design was influenced by the fashions of the ‘60s and ‘70s, including a couple that referenced the popular Nehru jackets and dresses worn on Rowan & Martin’s hit television show Laugh-In (1968-1973).
The folding chairs and cushions were moved around to create a variety of settings where Morris utilized everyday gestures heard within the lyrics of Bacharach’s songs. A constantly recurring triple phrase with swirling arms, a long arabesque with an extended arm and pointed index finger, and other phrases made up the limited movement vocabulary that Morris rearranged into a multitude of ways. They became as recognizable as the melodies that can make one say, “Ah, that is a song by Burt Bacharach!”
Mark Morris Dance Group in “The Look of Love” – Photo by Skye Schmidt
Morris’s genius lies in how he takes simple movement phrases and weaves them together into very sophisticated visual groupings. In Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe Morris created a long movement phrase, that the dancers performed in exquisite unison, and moved them around to resemble several groups performing separate phrases. In the brilliant Walk On By, the cast began simply walking across the stage in two rows before they began to shift patterns, ending with only two dancers walking off stage in opposite directions. Morris had woven together and then unraveled a moving tapestry of colorful dancers.
Mark Morris Dance Group in “The Look Of Love” – Photo by Christopher Duggan
The Look of Love was not my favorite work by Mark Morris, but I did not totally dislike it. I found the movement repetitive, the gestures a bit too literal, and overall a dash too cute . I did enjoy it when the dancers opened Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head by tilting back their heads and opening their mouths to depict catching the rain. I had to silently laugh, however, as this stance reminded me of photos of farm turkeys doing the same thing. One song that was unfamiliar to me, and from the reaction of very few laughs unrecognized by most, was Bacharach’s The Blob. Here Morris slowly grouped the dancers into an entangle mass of arms and legs, and for the first and only time throughout the work Lighting Designer Nicole Pearce chose to use darkness as a tool.
Mark Morris Dance Group in “The Look Of Love” – Photo by Christopher Duggan
The Look of Love will have its East Coast premiere at the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts October 26 – 29, 2022 at Lincoln Center. If you missed seeing it at BroadStage and you will be in New York during that time, I recommend that you go see the work. It is not groundbreaking but it is very entertaining.
The cast of dancers who executed Morris’s work superbly included: Mica Bernas, Karlie Budge, Domingo Estrada, Jr., Courtney Lopes, Taína Lyons, Dallas McMurray, Brandon Randolph, Nicole Sabella, Billy Smith, and Noah Vinson.
The Ensemble included: Marcy Harriell, lead vocals; Ethan Iverson, piano; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Simón Willson, bass; Vinnie Sperrazza, drums; Clinton Curtis and Blaire Reinhard, backing vocals
The music was by Burt Bacharach; Lyrics by Hal David and Mack David, Arrangement by Ethan Iverson; Choreography by Mark Morris; Costume and Chair Design by Isaac Mizrahi; Costume Associate was Marla Wonboy; and the Lighting Designer was Nicole Pearce.
To learn more about the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Mark Morris Musical Ensemble, please visit their website.
To see the entire BroadStage 2022/2023 performance season, please visit their website.
This article was updated 10/26/22.
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: (L-R) Brandon Randolph, Courtney Lopes, Nicole Sabella in “The Look of Love” by Mark Morris – Photo by Skye Schmidt
