Choreographer likes his music live

Choreographer Mark Morris doesn't believe in dancing to music - he believes in dancing with music.
Morris, whose Mark Morris Dance Group will perform Saturday at the Wilson Center for the Arts in Brook field, is more than just a choreographer who appreciates music - he is also an opera director and a conductor.
His company dances to live music, a topic about which he spoke passionately in a recent phone conversation.
"I understand that a lot of people work with recorded music," he said. "I think you should ask them why it's not important to them to work with live music. People would not go to the opera and hear a recorded orchestra, but they will go to the ballet and hear recorded music."
He explained that performing to live music is a collaborative effort. It creates a performance that is in the moment, with dancers and musicians responding to one another in a way that creates a different experience with each performance.
"I'm expensive to bring on tour," he said. "It would be cheaper, easier and less time-consuming to use recorded music, but it's nonnegotiable. I use very good music, very good musicians and wonderful dancers. It's a very high-quality experience."
Morris laughed a bit when, after a spirited explanation of his philosophy on performing with live music, he added that one of the pieces on the company's Wilson Center performance will actually feature taped accompaniment - a recording of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
"We've done this piece with a Bob Wills cover band, but it's just not the same," he said, explaining that the recording they use was done late in Wills' career, when he had been playing his trademark Western swing style for decades.
Although many have said that Morris' work draws from and blends many dance styles, or vocabularies, he sees it differently.
"The training for company is traditional ballet class, but these dancers are super versatile, gifted and intelligent - they can do anything," Morris said, adding that those qualities are essential to him.
"I don't think of styles and influence," he said. "I just work from the music and make up dance that's appropriate to it."