San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
5 questions
Mark Morris Dance Group joins forces with Sgt. Pepper.
The British invasion didn’t just change music: The Beatles also disrupted stodgy Eisenhower-era suiting with their impeccable early 1960s matching mod cuts. The Bay Area premiere of the Mark Morris Dance Group’s “Pepperland,” a new work by the New York choreographer celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” will also bring a very strong style story by Morris’ longtime costume designer Elizabeth Kurtzman.
“I love the very identifiably Beatles suits on four of the guys,” Kurtzman said over the phone from New York. “I always love that cut on men, not a lot of jacket, it’s tapered a little, a very ’60s silhouette.”
But choreographer Morris, who has had a decades-long relationship with presenter and co-commissioner Cal Performances, is quick to point out there are none of the iconic marching band jackets or other obvious sartorial nods to the album in the piece.
“Who wants an exact re-enactment?” said Morris from New York. “Go listen to the album and cry in your beer as you listen to ‘When I’m 64’ when you’re 64. I’m not trying to make it more relevant or update it or anything. This is us now, here’s the material, here’s the show, I hope you like it.”
Here are highlights from Style’s conversations with Morris and Kurtzman about the unique look of the piece.
Responding to the culture: Mark Morris: The Beatles had no hand in creating the culture except the music. Style-wise, they were responding to it. The hippie thing, the Indian thing. Of course, the band uniforms were just a reference to the vaudeville music-hall period. We went mod (costumes) instead of proto-hippie, which I think is nauseating. You have to be able to dance in it, it has to look beautiful, it has to relate to what we’re doing, which is not a trip down memory lane.
Elizabeth Kurtzman: I think the piece is a little more complicated; it’s not literal. It’s not authentic replication. It’s done in a smart, modern way. It makes the whole thing more interesting to work on. It’s brave to do that to the Beatles. On “Pepperland’s” color story: Kurtzman: I was sort of avoiding the satin jacket colors of “Sgt. Pepper’s.” Michael Caine did a documentary about the ’60s called “My Generation” and interviewed (designer) Mary Quant and the woman who started the store Biba. Everything was that kind of Day-Glo there, some of the fabrics had crazy double knit and weird textures. Morris: What we know of these colors, the proto-psychedialia, the idea that you’re seeing it in real life instead of in photography, is a big deal.
On dance costuming versus fashion:
Morris: Dancing in a suit is potentially the most uncomfortable thing in the world. The miracle of Liz is that she makes all of it danceable but quite comfortable for people. Kurtzman: When we had the (suit) fitting and they walked out, I said: You guys should dress like this all the time.
The sunglasses have it: Morris: The set, this Mylar mountain range that reflects light beautifully, it’s meant to be a kind of crystal-ball disco reflective psychedelic something. The “girl with lookingglass eyes,” the mirrored sunglasses that people wear, I wanted to make them look vacant, in an anime kind of way, but also to look fascistic, like people who have no thoughts. They’re reflective, and when you’re wearing them and when you’re not is a big part of the dramaturgy and a big part of the costume tie-in.
Kurtzman on Morris: Mark is always so great about telling you exactly what he needs in few words.
Morris on Kurtzman: I’ve done a lot of pieces with her over the decades. She’s so not a diva bitch designer. She doesn’t give you two things to look at, she’s generous and gives you 15.