{"id":109136,"date":"2025-05-11T12:30:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T19:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=109136"},"modified":"2025-05-13T19:22:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T02:22:58","slug":"mark-morris-dance-troupe-pays-homage-to-sgt-pepper-with-out-of-the-box-choreography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/mark-morris-dance-troupe-pays-homage-to-sgt-pepper-with-out-of-the-box-choreography\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Morris Dance Troupe pays homage to Sgt. Pepper with out-of-the-box choreography"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Odd angles are a highlight of Mark Morris’ “Pepperland” at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Photo by Frank Wing\/Cal Performances.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

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By WOODY WEINGARTEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

A black man scurries onstage and is introduced to the audience as white science giant Albert Einstein, only one of multiple racial- and gender-bending flashes and same-sex moves in a 12-part, 60-minute ballet, \u201cPepperland.\u201d<\/p>\n

The squatting dancer then mimics a classic photo of Einstein by sticking out his tongue and wiggling his brows.<\/p>\n

A brunette Marilyn Monroe prances. Shirley Temple preens. So does Sonny Liston. They\u2019re joined by other celebrities, all extracted from the cover montage of The Beatles\u2019 groundbreaking concept album, \u201cSgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band,\u201d to which the ballet pays homage.<\/p>\n

The life-size cartoons specifically flesh out \u201cMagna Carta,\u201d one of five original pieces by arranger\/composer Ethan Iverson squeezed between seven Fab Four tunes used in the Mark Morris creation at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley.<\/p>\n

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“Pepperland” features oblique postures. Photo by Frank Wing\/Cal Performances.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Morris\u2019 out-of-the-box choreography \u2014 highlighted by dancers repeatedly standing and walking at virtually impossible angles, frequent three-person lifts and dancers melting\/collapsing onto the floor, groupings of two and four, and frequent insertions of visual humor \u2014 guarantees to put a grin on your face and to keep it there.<\/p>\n

The music itself is another story.<\/p>\n

Fusion \u2014 which combined jazz harmonies and improv with rock, funk, and rhythm and blues \u2014 hadn\u2019t yet become \u201cthe thing\u201d in 1967. But that\u2019s when The Beatles released their groundbreaking concept album, a whimsical stroke of imagination that superimposed psychedelia and pop onto rock rhythms.<\/p>\n

Musical moments later, the term fusion became stretched beyond imagination following trumpeter Miles Davis\u2019 experimentations with electric instruments and rock beats in his jazz.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, to virtually everyone\u2019s confusion, public relations flacks started defining fusion as the blending of any two or more genres of music, no matter how disparate, even when the notion of playing five tempos simultaneously was a part of the melodic landscape.<\/p>\n

Iverson might not be fond of the label either, despite his arrangements rapidly slip-sliding like a roller coaster between slow, mournful blues to almost deafening jazz that features amazing runs on clarinet, sax, and drums.<\/p>\n

\u201cPepperland,\u201d which Morris first mounted in 2017 as a 50th anniversary tribute to the Sgt. Pepper album, was revived this weekend at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley under the auspices of Cal Performances. It not only merged elements of yesteryear seamlessly, it accomplished that task with light-hearted charm, dark aviator sunglasses, and Elizabeth Kurtzman\u2019s brightly colored Mod-style costumes that couldn\u2019t help but bring to mind 1967\u2019s Summer of Love.<\/p>\n

The often quaint and\/or oblique dance moves wash, rinse, and repeat, then wash, rinse, and repeat again and again, their consistency playing off the low backdrop of irregular mylar-like pieces that reflect various colors.<\/p>\n

Those who came to see unadulterated Beatles would have been disappointed. Iverson\u2019s score, played live by seven musicians (including him on piano), emphasizes vocals by Clinton Curtis and an electric instrument, the theremin, which requires no human touch (though Rob Schwimmer\u2019s body parts hover over it to produce a cornucopia of sound).<\/p>\n

Theremin riffs varied, from lovely high-pitched wailings that might potentially evoke tears to screechy chalk-on-blackboard sounds that could trouble eardrums.<\/p>\n

Innovative were moments like Iverson\u2019s conversion in \u201cA Day in the Life\u201d of individual vowels into two-note grunting patterns. Amusing, too, was a double-take-inducing move in which one dancer is hidden behind another to create a laughable form.<\/p>\n

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Mark Morris (left) and Ethan Iverson collaborate on a tribute to The Beatles. Photo by Trevor Izzo\/Cal Performances.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Morris seemed genuinely overjoyed Opening Night as he acknowledged with a smile and deep bow that a healthy chunk of the audience was giving his ballet a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPepperland\u201d starts with company members in a tight circle smoothly dancing their way into a larger design. The ballet ends similarly, just in reverse. In between are tons of smooth transitions from one grouping to another. And yes, Morris\u2019 flamboyant, carefree, entertaining approach to modern dance does delete much of the edginess and tension in the original Beatles musicology.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s left, sometimes, are mugging dancers and an over-all cutesiness with which all you can do is lean back and enjoy.<\/p>\n

The Mark Morris Dance Group has one more show at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, this weekend \u2014 at 3 p.m. today. Info: 510-642-9988 or\u00a0https:\/\/calperformances.org<\/a>. Upcoming Cal Performances include the June 21 roots music of Rhiannon Giddens and The Old-Time Revue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sherwood \u201cWoody\u201d Weingarten, a longtime member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at\u00a0voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a> or on his websites, <\/em>https:\/\/woodyweingarten.com<\/a><\/em> and https:\/\/vitalitypress.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  By WOODY WEINGARTEN A black man scurries onstage and is introduced to the audience as white science giant Albert Einstein, only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":3,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-109136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"