Exuberant dancemaker Mark Morris continues to redefine the relationship between music and movement with a spirited new evening-length work that pays homage to a monument of 20th-century art: the Beatles’ 1967 revolution in sound, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Commissioned by the City of Liverpool in celebration of the album’s 50th anniversary, Pepperland teases out the album’s colorfully avant-garde heart and omnivorous influences—from Bach to Stockhausen, music hall to raga—straining it through a theremin- and harpsichord-laced score by jazz composer Ethan Iverson, performed live by a remarkable seven-piece music ensemble.
Morris’ company transforms the stage into a candy-colored kaleidoscope of modish 60s dance crazes and balletic intricacy that hovers, like its inspiration, between pop pleasure and exhilarating abstraction.
NY Premiere
