Margaret Fuhrer:
Hi dance friends, and welcome to The Dance Edit podcast. I’m editor and producer Margaret Fuhrer, and I’m excited to welcome you to this new format for the pod: We’re back to weekly episodes now, and every other week we’ll be airing longer-form interviews with the artists who are shaping dance-world headlines.
Our interview guest this week—well, if you’re a dance person he really needs no introduction, but I’ll give a very brief one anyway. It’s Mark Morris, one of the most widely acclaimed and prolific choreographers in the world, full stop. And the Mark Morris Dance Group is about to premiere his latest dance, The Look of Love. It features the music of the legendary Burt Bacharach, who has also been involved in the production, as you’ll hear.
Morris is a famously candid and opinionated and lively interview subject. We started out talking about Bacharach and went on to discuss everything from how he feels about commercial dance work to how the pandemic has changed the arts—or rather changed everything, including the arts. So, buckle up: Here’s Mark Morris.
[pause]
Mark Morris:
Well, I will say one thing, which is I hate Zoom more than almost anything in the world. Anyway, here I am.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Here you are. I’m with you on Zoom, but I appreciate you being here. Hi, Mark, officially. Welcome to the podcast.
Mark Morris:
Thanks.
Margaret Fuhrer:
We are now, as we’re talking, we’re a few weeks out from the premiere of The Look of Love, your latest evening length work. It’s a tribute of sorts to Burt Bacharach. So I guess a natural place to start is, why Burt Bacharach and why Burt Bacharach now?
Mark Morris:
Well, why do you say it’s a tribute?
Margaret Fuhrer:
Oh, I’m just stealing from the marketing language that I was reading.
Mark Morris:
Oh, all right. Okay. Yeah. Well, I don’t know. It’s a dance to the music of Burt Bacharach and mostly Hal David. So yeah, I did it because I like it, which is why I choreograph all music. He’s great, great artist, a great songwriter, a great arranger, a great lots of things. And everyone has some familiarity with his work, whether you know it or not. So for some people it’s nostalgic. For some people it’s brand new. And some people will like it and some people won’t like it. And he’s written so many songs. It’s like a sort of a Schubertian scale of writing, fabulous, wonderful, moving, beautiful, surprising songs. I mean, it’s not Schubert because he of course died very, very young, and Bert is still with us in his nineties, and fabulous. And gave us his approval, and has been very friendly and cooperative. So since he’s involved in it, and approved it, and alive, that’s why I questioned the use of the term tribute. And, of course, I salute him and love the music.
So Ethan Iverson and I—and Ethan was my music director for a number of years, and is a very, very great jazz pianist, and composer, and performer, and arranger—and he mentioned, well we mentioned, Bacharach’s music many, many years ago, because we love it. And there’s a huge variety of it, and it’s covers a great deal of territory. Ethan is the person who is doing the musical arrangement and playing in it. He also is known for having composed the arrangements of my dance called Pepperland, which was based on the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album, et cetera.
So it might seem like we’re doing a series of tributes to music from the sixties and seventies, and we’re not. I mean, it’s not like a collection of these that we’re going to keep doing. We did Pepperland on a surprise commission from the festival in Liverpool celebrating the 50th anniversary of that. And this is not assigned to any particular event or any sort of assignment. It is, we love this music and decided it was time to do this piece. So it’s been in the back of our collective minds for a very long time and we’ve just now made it come true.
Margaret Fuhrer:
That was my next 15 questions. That was great. [laughter] Since Burt is, as you said, in his nineties, I’m guessing he’s not running around the rehearsal studio with you. But you mention that he has been involved in the process. How has he been involved?
Mark Morris:
It’s called Zoom, and it’s a nightmare, but it works when you need to communicate with somebody thousands of miles away. So in that way, in his support. And we’ve had a few meetings. And I don’t know, he’s great and interesting and funny. He would sing snatches of tunes on the Zoom. I was like, “Oh my God, what is this? It’s so fabulous this is happening.” So it’s really—and it’s not a trip down memory lane, it’s not a nostalgia festival. But it’s, really, the songs are so varied, and there’s so much information in them, not just that most of them are kind of upbeat and most of them have a sad punchline.
A lot of them are about being…a lot of genres of music are in a particular mode and in a particular style of description. And this stuff, which is always, it’s always in the back of my mind—that sounds like a song title of Mr. Burt Bacharach’s [laughter]—but these songs have become sort, for a lot of people, younger people, nobody wrote them. They’re kind of folk music. It’s like, “Oh wait, I know that. Oh, somebody wrote that?” And I have an announcement, that person was Burt Bacharach. And so Ethan is doing arrangements for rhythm trio—piano, drums, bass—plus a lead singer, Marcy Harriell, and two backup singers. What else am I forgetting? And trumpet—is that right? Yeah. And it’s for 10 dancers in my company. The costumes are Isaac Mizrahi, who’s a wonderful designer, and a long time friend and collaborator of mine. And there, that’s another answer that probably did a whole bunch of questions because I just end up rambling on. So go ahead.
Margaret Fuhrer:
No, never apologize for rambling to a journalist.
Mark Morris:
[laughter]
Margaret Fuhrer:
I think, I mean some people came into Pepperland expecting a big Beatles sing along, which is very much not what that show was. Sounds like it’s not what this show is going to be either.
Mark Morris:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Why did you and Ethan want to take a step away from the familiar songs themselves?
Mark Morris:
Well, in Look of Love, which is the Bacharach piece, it isn’t far away at all. They’re very direct arrangements with basically a jazz ensemble. And Burt was kind enough, and considerate enough, and professional enough to, on our first meeting, say “You guys should—you don’t want it to be boring. It shouldn’t just be a playlist. And there has to be a variety of tone and tempo and everything. And have you considered this, a medley, or having different kind of vocalists?” It’s like, well those were all the questions I was going to ask him. “Do you mind, Mr. Bacharach, please, if we did this one little thing?” And he was like, “Well, go ahead. Make it an interesting show.” So that’s all I want to do.
But in contrasting that with the case of the Beatles, a lot of people don’t realize it, but the album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was not performable music. It was written in response to their being exhausted, and stampeded, and no one listening to their music because everyone was screaming in all these stadiums. I was at one of those shows when I was an adorable child. I didn’t hear a note of The Beatles. My sisters were screaming so loud next to me, and so were the other 8,000 people. It was like, “Wow, what is this for?”
So I only work with living music, living musicians and live music in my performances, because why would you not if you can? I use live dancers. And I use live musicians and a live audience. That’s my favorite combination. So in the case of the Bacharach music, it’s always been live, and it was always recorded live, and we don’t have to imagine what it would be like. So with Pepperland, there was no real template for what to do with the music. Because there’s no reason to recreate something that was a studio recording and meant to be that. So they came to perform some of the songs later on, but they were never originally meant to be performed in a concert situation. That’s the long answer to that.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, so like The Beatles, Burt Bacharach has just an enormous catalog of work. For Pepperland, you focused on one album. That was a way of narrowing it. But how did you and Ethan, and maybe Burt, create the, playlist for The Look of Love?
Mark Morris:
Oh, that was me and Ethan. And Ethan and I was like, “I’m not as wild about this one as I am about that one.” Or “I can make this into a great arrangement.” Or “This isn’t my favorite song, but it would make a good dance.” Or “This is the greatest song I’ve ever heard in my life.” So it was a mix of those. Ethan was working on the arrangements during his very busy touring schedule and performing schedule. So he came up with a series of songs, and their sort of rudimentary rearrangements, and I started working with those. Colin Fowler, who’s my current and fabulous music director, is a brilliant keyboardist, as well as many other things. And so he plays for rehearsal. I sing, or sometimes Marcy, the singer that’s going to do it, lately has been coming in. And I’ve been choreographing it the way I always do.
And I still, just lately, decided on the actual sequence of events of the songs because of what key they’re in, what tempo, what the dances look like. So I’ve just lately sort of rearranged the sequence to make a more satisfying sort of arc. And so we’re working on that. And we’re heading into the home stretch, of course. Now is when the [beep] hits the fan, which is apparently this exciting part. That’s what I always remember, always in retrospect, it’s like, “Oh, of course, that was so thrilling heading up to the opening buzzer.” And it is, but it’s also really a little bit stressy and a little bit nervous making. But it’s going great. I’m very happy with it.
Margaret Fuhrer:
You’re talking about choosing songs because they were the greatest song you’ve ever heard. Which of those songs is the greatest song you’ve ever heard?
Mark Morris:
I’m not saying. I don’t want to lead the witness. [laughter] My sister’s favorite song is, years and decades ago, was “Message to Michael.” And that’s a song a lot of people aren’t as familiar with. It’s not as—well, I don’t know, it’s a great song and you love it or you don’t know it. So I had to include that. And it was like, are we going to do “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”? I don’t know. And the answer is yes. So we struggled over that, partly because it’s so familiar and partly because it’s so catchy that it’s like… It’s not cheap, it’s just, it’s an ear worm as they say. It gets in your head and doesn’t go away. And I guess that’s good advertising for people who get out of the theater and are singing something at the restaurant after. It’s like, “Oh what was that?” “You must see this show.”
Margaret Fuhrer:
I know you sort of famously don’t like to talk about the process of making dances.
Mark Morris:
I just have been.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, I mean in terms of the actual steps.
Mark Morris:
Well, wait a minute, hold on. Hold on. I’m reluctant about talking about the process of my work. Well, that’s why you read the books that I’ve written. That’s why you read my memoir. It’s all about that. Also, I personally, I don’t want to know about other people’s stuff. I don’t want to see a work in progress. I think you should do the work and then show the show. The piece should be judged by its entirety and its completeness. That’s the art product that I’m working on. The sort of craft part, the working part of making up a dance, is it’s personal. Because talking about the process of making up a dance is, I choose the music, my company does this, I make up steps, I change them. All steps are some combination of right, left, right, and go like this. So that’s why the proof is in the tasting of the pudding. It’s not in the pudding. That’s a miscalculation. So anyway, I’ll answer whatever question you want except… Yeah, go ahead.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, it was worth a shot. How do you feel about formulas? Because you’ve said that Pepperland, The Look of Love, it’s not necessarily a formula that you’re following. And yet, at least as a viewer looking at your work, it certainly seems like your choreography often involves, maybe formula is the wrong word, but motifs. There is this sense of, it worked, let’s revisit it. How do you feel about all that?
Mark Morris:
You mean style?
Margaret Fuhrer:
I mean—when we’re talking about choreography in particular, yeah, sure. But also, I mean Pepperland, The Look of Love, those are two dances that are similar in ways that might imply like, “Hey, yeah, this is a formula that works.”
Mark Morris:
Yeah, they’re similar. But a formula is mad libs. A formula is something that works…for a while. Let’s see. But that’s the other thing in describing and not describing my, what people call, creative process. The formula means I am using music, and dancers, and the proscenium stage, and lighting, and costumes, and an audience. That’s the formula. The formula is concert dance. The formula, I don’t know, I don’t like the word formula for one thing. But also those two dances out of the other 150 dances that I’ve choreographed, I don’t know if we can make that kind of a generalized statement. They’re similar in that people have two arms and two legs, and I use live music.
It’s like—I’ve been accused of being schematic, in that when you hear this text being sung and someone is making a gesture that seems to illuminate or translate, transfer that sense of text and music through physical action—of course, both of those are already actions—then you understand it or you see it in a particular way that seems to some people reductive. Or the cursed term, “Mickey Mousing.”
Margaret Fuhrer:
Mickey Mousing. Yeah.
Mark Morris:
Yeah. But, the thing is, Mickey Mouse involved many, many people. The composers, the animators, the sketchers, the storyboard people, the money that went behind that, and to produce these astoundingly great works of art in film animation that we call Mickey Mouse. Because it’s like, that’s brilliant work. So to me that’s not insulting at all. That’s a great compliment. And it’s a sign of shallowness in the people who write it.
Margaret Fuhrer:
You’ve actually segued perfectly into my next question. Because there’s that great line in your book from Out Loud where you say, “To choreograph one single Disney cartoon for five minutes, I’d (beep) a mouse.” And I am wondering if you could talk a little more about how you feel about explicitly commercial art, just art that sets out to make money. Because it gets a bad rap in the high dance scene, but…
Mark Morris:
What’s the high dance scene? It’s a money factory. The high dance scene is the classical ballet industry, and also the co-option of the visual arts have taken over certain, the aspect of what used to be called sort of avant garde dance. So there’s so much dance now being adopted and sponsored and presented by museums and by visual arts organizations. And there are 50 more zeros after the budget of the visual arts than there are for dance. And that’s fine. It’s a much, much bigger crowd.
I think making money is great. No, really. Wayne McGregor’s movie projects that he’s done, all the stuff that he does, which generates a great deal of money and he’s very generous with it, and uses it to propagate more dance, and more interest, and more collaboration. I salute him. And people who choreograph for commercials or people who choreograph Broadway shows—if nothing is greater than seven hours of Harry Potter on Broadway for your kids, hooray. Hooray for the artists who are doing it. Hooray, that the culture has some kind of body to it.
It’s meant to be part of the culture, dancing and music and literature, let’s call them the arts, and let’s call them the lyric arts, the performing arts, which are absolutely crucial. And in the United States, very, very dimly viewed, very little supported. And so if someone is doing wonderful 30 second dances, or starting some kind of not life-threatening challenge on TikTok, hooray. Why not? And Beyoncé could give Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker a couple of bucks. It wouldn’t kill her. But it’s also, a lot of moves are in the public domain just because that’s what people do. It’s partly a part of behavior. So I don’t know what question I just answered, but it’s pretty interesting.
Margaret Fuhrer:
It is interesting. I’m asking about art and money partly because of COVID. Let’s talk about COVID a little bit. Because you gave that interview to The Washington Post a few months ago that was very frank about how terrible the pandemic has been for you and your company.
Mark Morris:
That interview with Sarah, I was worried about it a little bit, because I’m generally known to be sort of frank or rude or whatever. But it’s also, “How do you like the soup?’ “I don’t.” It’s like, you asked. You’re the restaurant. It’s like, “Well it’s terrible. Here’s what’s wrong.” So with that conversation with Sarah, I was saying what I was experiencing. And I thought it would cause trouble. And it actually was really, really popular and successful, and people were talking about, which isn’t why I do it. I’m just like, I didn’t learn Italian. I didn’t—
Margaret Fuhrer:
No sourdough?
Mark Morris:
Yeah, no, no, I would never do that. I didn’t raise orchids. I didn’t adopt puppies and then send them to the exterminator. I wasn’t seeing unicorns and rainbows, let me put it that way. People have been talking—and that was part of my response to Sarah, in that article in The Post—that everything’s going to be fine. We need the arts to get us through that. That it’s a balm and it’s some somehow better for people, and we’re saving people with our imaginations and our creative visions. And I think that’s nonsense.
You want your work, whether you’re a writer or an actor or a musician or a dancer, whatever, you want it to affect people, but you don’t get to decide in what way. If you do, you’re a bad artist. And also, it’s not meant to cure everything that ails you. So I reject the idea that the arts are supposed to make you feel good. I like it when they do. But the idea of it being directional, of it being part of this wellness movement, I think is just infantile. And popular. But I think it’s a responsibility that’s put on the arts that is unrealistic and not very important.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, how about financially speaking? Because, yeah, dance business models were already not in a great place before the pandemic. Now they face this more sort of existential threat. And you talked in that Post article, too, little about that. Are you feeling any less doom and gloom on that front these days?
Mark Morris:
It’s not doom and gloom. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m optimistic, and I’m realistic, and I’m a nonconformist. What’s changed the most, as I see it, from the early part of this horrible COVID future that we have, is that people are used to getting things, if you’re lucky enough and well off enough, to get things delivered instantly, and you see little tiny snippets of things, bits of things. There’s that, plus the fear of going into a crowded theater or an airport. It’s the same with restaurants. It’s the same with all entertainment—tourist dollars and attention. If there aren’t tourists, there’s no need for the Eiffel Tower anymore. So it’s a little bit… I’m mixed up about it. It’s not gloom and doom, it’s just, things change. And whatever I like or dislike doesn’t affect the culture as a whole, it affects me and my relationship to it. But I can’t hold up the world.
Margaret Fuhrer:
What’s making you feel optimistic?
Mark Morris:
Oh, good question. Work. Working, with my company back at work and getting ready to put on a show, which is also frustrating because there have been people missing all the time because of COVID, and having to substitute repertory of the shows. It’s like, “Oh boy, they didn’t cancel it. Hooray, they just postponed it.” But unfortunately we have to put it together now, and that takes a week to put together a show that if it was up we could just tour it. So it’s both. It’s like, “oh, this is so much work, kind of on an emergency schedule,” plus, “hooray, we get to perform for other people and that’s why we exist.” So it’s both. And I’d like to think that it’s getting heavier on the “hooray” side than the grim bit.
Margaret Fuhrer:
This next question takes a little bit of a turn, but it’s concerns another bête noire of yours.
Mark Morris:
Oh! Good.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah, well it’s not—I was going to say, I wish I were turning it in a more positive direction. It’s not yet, but maybe I’ll get there.
Mark Morris:
Oh. That’s all right. Okay.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I was remembering a moment from last year’s Dance Magazine Awards, which were at the Guggenheim.
Mark Morris:
Oh sure.
Margaret Fuhrer:
You were part of this pre-show panel talking about the relationship between dance and visual art. But what stuck with me was you talking, with some heat, about how terrible it often is for dancers to perform at museums, because the conditions are usually not great. And then you went into how frustrating it is that dancers are so often asked or required to just put up with a lot of not great situations.
Mark Morris:
That was positive. I’m defending dancers’ rights, that’s what I’m doing.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Have you seen any progress in terms of how dancers are treated, maybe in this comeback since COVID?
Mark Morris:
I was speaking specifically about dance in museums. And many people don’t agree with my idea that I’ve had for many decades: I don’t want to dance on cement. I don’t want to dance on a marble floor in a museum. I don’t want to go to a museum because my back hurts from just walking there. So why—I mean, I love going to museums—but why would you want to dance, unless it’s specifically designed for that sort of place? You can’t just take a dance, a theater dance, and put it into a place like that.
You can, of course Merce famously did that kind of thing. And other choreographers who continue to. It’s fine. I don’t do it. And I believe that it’s—it’s a little bit petting zoo. It’s a little—here’s one I prepared earlier—it’s demonstrative as opposed to performative. And if I see a show that, obviously I have great sympathy for people who are then jumping on a marble floor in a museum for people with their phones. And it’s just like, to me it’s degrading. It’s debasing. And others don’t see it that way. That’s my opinion.
And hooray. If you want to do that, do it. If I have dances that are choreographed specifically to be performed in what I would say not ideal circumstances. I have dances that we can do outside at a park, which we do. But I’m not going to do a full on knock-down, drag out jumping and lifting and rolling on the ground kind of dance on a hard floor. I won’t do it. I think it’s inhumane.
Margaret Fuhrer:
All right, a lighter direction now. Aside from the music of Burt Bacharach, and the work of the other collaborators involved in your dances, what other art have you been enjoying recently? What have you been seeking out?
Mark Morris:
Television.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Like what?
Mark Morris:
It’s great. Television is just great. It’s so much more sophisticated than so much of the performing arts. And it’s right there. There’s amazing stuff going on.
But as far as going to shows, I was just abroad for the first time. I was at the Edinburgh Festival briefly, and in London, and I went to shows. I didn’t go to any dance shows because I didn’t want to. I went to music shows, and a couple of plays. And it was really great. But it’s like a busman’s holiday. I mean, I make up dances. I don’t necessarily want to see them.
But it’s like with restaurants, same with arts organizations, it’s so much more fraught than it was. So a lot of people have shut down after the big COVID push, which—I mean big COVID problem, which is a little bit different now. So it’s like the restaurant I used to go to that I love isn’t quite good, not quite back. And people are under prepared and scared. And so that’s still true. There’s tentativeness in the performing arts. And like me at an airport, I’m not comfortable because I don’t really trust everybody. And that’s true with audiences who are still coming and going, and we’re working on it. But I don’t feel particular, I don’t feel COVID relief, COVID free. I’m still very concerned and very… We test all the time still, as we should. So that’s the complicated bit. And I think things are progressing. They’re getting better, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to survive. It’s very complicated.
Margaret Fuhrer:
It is complicated. Every question ends up, inevitably, somewhere complicated.
Mark Morris:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
So I guess I’ll end with a question that—well, maybe it’s complicated, or actually, maybe it’s not complicated at all. What do you think makes an artist great?
Mark Morris:
Boy, I don’t know. There’s some artists I think are great, but I don’t like their work. And some people whose work I like, but I don’t think they’re great. It’s like, that’s a taste thing. That’s a subjective thing. Absolutely. It’s like, what a great singer, what a great musician, but I don’t like your voice very much.
It’s like, I say this all the time, Frank Sinatra, Édith Piaf, Maria Callas, all sing flat and late. And we love that. If they were early and sharp, I don’t think we would love it. But it makes you, I don’t know if it’s a relaxing thing or a trust thing or a mysterious, like what’s going to happen next. But it’s, you know what I mean, it’s not perfect pitch and perfect rhythm. That’s nice to be able to do that. But that isn’t necessarily how that music needs to go, according to me.
So it’s really like there’s some… I’m trying to think of, trying to use a name without getting in trouble. Just like someone who I like, but I don’t like their choreography so much, or vice versa. So for me, because I’m an artist, I don’t doubt that I’m good at it. But it does, it’s not, my work isn’t the answer for everybody. Again, it’s not Disney. I try not to decide what people think when they see and hear a show of mine. And that’s scary. And you want everybody to love everything, but then what kind of a date is that? If nobody is arguing over dinner after the show. It’s like, “Oh, that was fine.” I’d like a little bit of, “That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,” or “I’m never going back.” And you know, things in between, certainly. [laughter]
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, that seems like a good place to end. Thank you again for making the time on your vacation. I appreciate it.
Mark Morris:
Thank you.
[pause]
Thanks again to Mark, who as I mentioned at the end there was doing this interview while on a mini break from the studio, before the chaos of the final Look of Love push began. That work will have its world premiere at BroadStage in Santa Monica on October 20 before heading to The Kennedy Center the following week, and then continuing to tour around the country. In the show notes we have a link to the show’s microsite, which has lots more information. We also have links to the Mark Morris Dance Group’s website and social accounts, so you can keep up with everything they have going on.
Thanks to all of you for listening. We’ll be back next Thursday with a headline rundown episode, recapping all the top dance news stories. Until then, keep learning, keep advocating, and keep dancing.