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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Mark Morris: The Look of Love

The Mark Morris Dance Company performs The Look of Love.

Jan 23–26, 2025

Mark Morris has always been good with lyrics, whether by John Milton or Bob Wills. The choreographer is funny about being literal, and literal about being funny, then will reveal the metaphysical in the etymological and stun us. But it’s hard to imagine Burt Bacharach inspiring such a deep ache. His tunes manage to be both catchy—you want to skip down the street to them—and banal. They may be rhythmically nuanced, but feeling slides right off them. Still, performed with live singers and a band, the tunes in The Look of Love, Morris’s first evening-length work since the pandemic, should at least invite fun that’s as saturated in color as the Isaac Mizrahi costumes in blocks of red, pink, purple, orange, and yellow. —Apollinaire Scherr