Zero to Sixty Thousand

How many moves can a dancer pack in one phrase? Then repeat, change, jostle, repeat? Flipper-y hand movements and shake-waddle-waddle? All set to live Schumann (Schumann! I adulate!) in silly costumes, followed by Vivaldi, with hula-girl waving thrown in?

Warning: This is a rave. I’ve never seen the Mark Morris Dance Group before, then my wife scores gala-night hot seats for the beginning of BAM’s “Month of Mark” to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. Excerpting an email to a friend just before I leave my apartment: “Putting the suit on for Mark Morris, hope it’s good.” And was it good—it was good, it was terrific, it was very completely moving and I was shaken. Measuring the speed of fandom, I’ve gone from zero to 60,000 in one evening.

What other companies in the peerdom (besides the all-wonderful Ailey) showcase dancers so eclectic? One was the shape of a small bear. Another had pooch. But in grace and attention to the live music (live music! I’m ruined; thanks to Mark, jerk, contemporary dance to canned Nature Company CDs will never be the same) and for matching instinct to Morris’s intellectualism and way with patterns, the dancers were remarkable, breathtaking—any word to convey the opposite of dry, stiff, pompous.

So, a rave. See them. And then see about some free drinks; the nice thing about connections is you get to attend the after-party. I spotted Isaac Mizrahi, then I felt weird about recognizing his face. Not a short man, Mizrahi. And when Annie Leibowitz wants a drink, she doesn’t fuck around—the crowd around the bar was eight deep, but Leibowitz chugged through, shouldering them aside, never apologizing. That’s the way to do it, though supposedly she’s bizonkers.