KEY POINTS:
Mark Morris, founder, choreographer and beating heart of the legendary Mark Morris Dance Group, has some pithy words of advice for Aucklanders seeing his company perform for the first time - and it will be a first for this city.
"Just shut up, listen and watch," he says.
"Don't try and decide what it is all about. Just watch and listen."
And then, in a contrasting burst of flowery enthusiasm, he raves about "endlessly gorgeous music" and "a big, big, full evening of gorgeousness, bursting at the seams".
Morris, feted for all of his extraordinary career for his craftsmanship and innovation, and mostly for the intense musicality of his creations, presents his 2006 work Mozart Dances at the Civic this month.
The Mark Morris Dance Group always performs with live musical accompaniment.
On this occasion, the music will be provided by the Auckland Philharmonia under guest conductor Jane Glover and with two distinguished pianists, Ursula Oppens and Amy Dissanayake.
The work is presented in three parts: Eleven, set to Piano Concerto No11; Double, set to the Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos; and Twenty Seven, to Piano Concerto No 27.
"It is huge," Morris says, "with more Mozart than you would get in a Mozart concert. And the music is not well known, it's unpredictable - and gorgeous."
That word again. And then, catching himself in full cry, he retreats somewhat, muttering about sounding like his own PR blurb though a little later he does seriously classify Mozart Dances as three of his best ever.
The work has had a giddy effect on scores of those who have experienced it and committed their learned views to print.
"To hear Mozart through Morris' ears is to appreciate the music in scintillating new detail," said the Guardian. "An enchantment for the senses," said the Times. And the New York Sun opined it as "virtuosity embedded in long stretches of routine brilliance".
The most revered dance writer of all, Joan Acocella, who has written the biography of Mark Morris, and who reviewed Mozart Dances at the New York State Theatre last August for the New Yorker, pointed out it had played to sellout audiences of 3000 a night for three nights in 2006 and was being reprised for four nights the following year.
Of Morris' huge popularity, she writes: "He gives people the modern pleasure of seeing abstract work without leaving them scratching their heads over what it was all about.
"Though he may not have a story on the surface, he always has one underneath, in the form of movement motifs. For every dance he devises a certain number of key gestures, which he then weaves through the choreography."
Look for the one in Mozart Dances that could be called the "danger motif", she continues, where the dancer suddenly turns and looks behind him as if he had heard a strange sound, and then looks to the audience as if to say, `Did you hear that?"
Morris controls the quality of his company's work jealously.
"I loan my classical ballets," he says. "But my company pieces - my reputation - are fiercely guarded."
His work is so extremely specific, musically, rhythmically, movement wise and in nuance, that it takes even the most carefully selected dancer two years of work within the group, before they can really "do it", Morris says.
At a MMDG audition 500 people might apply and "very few can pull it off". All 18 dancers in the company "are fluent in classical ballet speak" but, apart from that, do not conform to a type.
"They are all stars," he says. And there are no second casts, no "driftwood" on board. While some companies tour an alternative company of performers, the MMDG is a tight pack of 18, talented, committed, extremely hard working, who can all cover for one another - and who can travel together.
"So not many teenagers," he remarks.
Morris' work falls into "three columns" and "balances out in a beautiful way".
Of prime importance is his choreography for the MMDG.
Then he occasionally makes a work for a classical company: there have been six for the San Francisco Ballet since 1994, and works for the American Ballet Theatre, the Boston Ballet and his works are in the repertory of the English National Ballet, the Royal Ballet and the Royal New Zealand Ballet among many others.
And his third passion is in directing and choreographing opera.
Awards and accolades received are too many to mention, but include eight honorary doctorates, to date, and last year, the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival lifetime achievement award.
Ask Morris himself what he considers his greatest achievement and he replies without hesitation.
"I am no flash in the pan," he quips. "I have had a full-time and successful dance company since 1980. That is pretty unusual in the United States.
"And I am very proud of my building."
In 2001, MMDG opened the Mark Morris Dance Centre in Brooklyn, New York, housing rehearsal space for the dance community and outreach programmes for children.
"It's well designed and well attended," he says. "We rehearse there and we have 700 kids enrolled.
"They are mostly little kids so we can fit a lot into each room. We started with just one studio and expanded to meet demand. I call that a big success. A success for culture."
PERFORMANCE
What: Mozart Dances, by the Mark Morris Dance Company
Where: Civic Theatre, Aug 22-29
