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July 30, 2006
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Thin Brew, a review of Mark Morris' Sylvia
When Morris does finally give Sylvia her variation in Act III, the steps don’t add up architecturally to a variation. You don’t need wildly original steps or tons of vocabulary to make a successful dance — “Esplanade”, anyone? You do need a design to the phrases; how they connect and interact. Morris’ phrases lay there inert. Sometimes, as in Sylvia’s coda with Aminta in Act III, they look straight out of the classroom. More often, as when he begins a male duet with the men hopping in a circle as if doing the Alley Cat at a Bar Mitzvah, they’re just dull.
When polishing the review, I felt there were too many references to Ashton's Sylvia; something I would not have done in other circumstances. A work should be judged on its own, and as Mary Cargill notes in a review of the second night, the Ashton revival was still a year off when Morris was making his version. But I left them in. What I was saying (that Morris' choroegraphy is weak) goes far enough against conventional wisdom that I was going to have to back up my assertion in much greater detail, and that also meant bringing the Ashton in for comparison.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at July 30, 2006 11:16 PM
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