The Genius of Ambiguity: Mark Morris at La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest

The performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group at Summerfest last week was like a loaf of artisan rye bread—dense, complex, chewy. The evening at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center was so packed with dance, music, and ideas, I would have like multiple viewings: once to focus on Morris’s choreography and brilliant movers, once for the world-renowned Summerfest musicians, and a third time to lose myself in the thrilling voice of countertenor John Holiday.

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Innocence Meets Irony in Mark Morris’s Idea-Rich “Pepperland”

In a fascinating coincidence, La Jolla Music Society presented two dances this season by a noted choreographer using music from the 1960s, and the two couldn’t have been more different. Paul Taylor’s vapid “Changes,” shown here in January, used music by the Mamas and Papas (seriously?) and reduced the 60s to hippie chicks and bell-bottoms. “Pepperland,” in happy contrast, is a work of substance, a celebration of the youthful creativity and idealism of the 1960s … and a profound, important reflection on what became of those dreams.

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