ABSTRACT
Mark Morris’s historical importance is that his work unites what were, before him, two divergent trends. One is the traditional modern dance, with its weightiness, its musicality, and its liberal humanism. The other is the postmodern sensibility-with its insistent irony, its self-conscious historicism, and its political emphasis-that dominated American art, including dance, in the 1980s. When Morris began showing his work to New York audiences, these two trends were following widely separate paths. In traditional modern dance, there seemed to be no young talent; in what the young were doing, there seemed to be no dance, but rather a sort of political theatre. Morris’s work bridged the divide. It was up-to-date, full of ‘styles’ and mordancy and taboobreaching (particularly gender-violation: unisex dances, women lifting men, and so on). Yet it was dance, modern dance: plastic, musical, fundamentally earnest. And the combination seemed completely natural.
