The award-winning dance efficiency “Re-Burt” is coming to Berkeley this June. This immersive display options unutilized interpretations of Burt Bacharach’s iconic songs, with unedited choreography via Randee Paufve, and an all-star forged of dancers and musicians. The efficiency is gifted via Paufve Dance and the Berkeley Symphony, and can come with Bacharach’s maximum cherished hits together with “What the World Needs Now is Love” and “I Say a Little Prayer.” Tickets are actually on sale.
Ask Mark Morris why he selected the song of Burt Bacharach, the mythical songwriter who died on February 8, for his 2022 dance paintings “The Look of Love,” and the award-winning choreographer doesn’t hesitate.
“The music is great, obviously,” he stated in an interview that took park prior to Bacharach’s demise. “He wrote genius music for many decades.”
Certainly, Bacharach, continuously in tandem with lyricist Hal David, has written ratings and dozens of father songs from the Fifties onwards – together with numerous classics – and has been coated via greater than 1,000 musical artists over the process the age. of a profession that has established him as one among pop song’s largest songwriters. all year.
Now, only a year then Bacharach’s passing, Morris’ dance troupe will likely be in Berkeley to accomplish “The Look of Love” Feb. 17-19 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Corridor, as a part of a Cal presentation. Efficiency.
Morris’ paintings is a party of Bacharach’s ‘music genius’ – hits like ‘Walk on By’, ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose’ and 11 alternative Bacharach works . That includes the Mark Morris Dance Team and a unutilized rating organized and performed via pianist and prevalent Morris collaborator Ethan Iverson, “The Look of Love” will produce its Bay Segment debut at Berkeley.
In a choice from his Untouched York studio, Morris stated “The Look of Love” is a tribute to a songwriter whose songs have stood the take a look at of year.
“You know his music,” he stated, “everyone knows his music to some degree. It’s extremely everywhere, extremely popular, whether you know it or not. Songs have been around forever, in various manifestations, and they all have their pitfalls.
“There’s a wonderful hook in every song,” provides Morris. “Whether it’s rhythmic or textual or harmonic, a kind of chord progressions that are surprising. They’re more complicated than they look, and that’s one of their wonderful signatures.
Indeed, Bacharach’s songs were an original fusion of jazz, rock, folk and Brazilian music, producing memorable hit after hit for decades.
Apart from the charts, “The Look of Love” isn’t a musical jukebox. Like Morris’ Beatles-inspired “Pepperland,” which Cal Performances offered in 2018, the unutilized display will pay homage to the songs instead than at once masking them. Iverson’s preparations give unutilized interpretations of usual song, with 10 Morris dancers, wearing sherbet-colored costumes via Isaac Mizrahi, appearing the choreographer’s exuberant dances.
And presen lots of the songs are in an instant recognizable, “The Look of Love” incorporates a minimum of one much less usual piece: Bacharach’s theme tune for the 1958 sci-fi movie, “The Blob.”
All over his profession, Morris has explored a myriad of musical eras and kinds. Since his first fat collision, “The Hard Nut,” an incredible model of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” he has created unutilized dances to the song of many composers, from Bach and Handel to Bay Segment masters Lou Harrison. and John Adams, in addition to composers outdoor the classical farmland like Gene Autry.
His works had been carried out in concert events, operas and ballets on the Metropolitan Opera, American Ballet Theatre, English Nationwide Opera and San Francisco Ballet, amongst others.
Morris stated he and Iverson thought to be Bacharach to be one among The us’s stunning composers. Later taking part on quite a lot of Morris’ previous works, together with “Spring, Spring, Spring,” which Cal Performances offered in 2013, Morris and Iverson dove into the unutilized undertaking.
“Ethan and I had been talking about Bacharach’s fabulous music for a long time – years and years ago when Ethan was musical director at my company,” Morris stated.
“We had done ‘Pepperland’, and it went really well,” Morris added. “They’re not exactly related, although the time periods are kind of related, and Ethan arranged the music for both shows. But it’s not like a series – it’s just kind of a coincidence that we ended up doing them in this sequence.
Morris also said there was a significant difference – “The score for ‘Pepperland’”, he stated, “was a recording that was never performed live and was never intended for be done live. It was done as a studio recording.
These performances, featuring Iverson’s arrangements, are performed live, with Iverson on piano leading an ensemble of bass, drums, trumpet and three vocalists, along with Broadway veteran Marcy Harriell (“Rent”, “In the Heights”).
Morris stated he and Iverson labored broadly in combination on numerous sequences for “The Look of Love,” having a look at other instructions, key signatures, and techniques the songs join in combination. The outcome, he stated, “is kind of a mix, and one song leads to the next.”
He additionally conferred with Bacharach throughout the method; in October, the composer got here to Santa Monica and attended the get dressed practice session for the premiere of “The Look of Love” on the BroadStage. He made useful ideas, says Morris, including that it was once glorious to have his enter. “He gave us his support, and it was great.”
Bacharach it sounds as if loved the enjoy as smartly.
“I found an ideal collaborator in Mark Morris, whose brilliant choreography and deep musicality give songs new meaning and dimension through movement,” stated the songwriter. “Like a great melody, its dances evoke atmosphere and inspire feelings, and I think that’s just what the world needs right now.”
Now that “The Look of Love” has been excused globally, Morris is being attentive to song and making an allowance for composers for his later paintings. “There are plenty of them,” he stated.
“I used to be simply on a shuttle to Indonesia, Bali for a time, and it’s a stunning listening alternative. The song is astounding from that a part of Indonesia. So I’m obsessive about it presently, as a result of that I gained a immense dose.
“I concentrate to a accumulation of song and I don’t at all times audition for performs. However I by no means know – I miracle myself infrequently.
Touch Georgia Rowe at [email protected]
‘THE LOOK OF LOVE’
Tune via Burt Bacharach, choreography via Mark Morris, preparations via Ethan Iverson; offered via Cal Performances
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 17-18, 3 p.m. Feb. 19
Or: Zellerbach Corridor, UC Berkeley
Tickets: $18 to $150; calperformances.org
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