A Big Finish . . . For Another Great Season at The Pillow

There are almost no movements in a Mark Morris dance that look like conventional dance steps. The basic building blocks of locomotion we learn as children in a modern dance class are all there: walk, run, slide, skip, gallop, jump, leap. But Morris’s dancers also crawl, scooch and lumber, and they gesture and mime, neither of which usually sit comfortably in a dance piece. Rarely do they jeté, passé, or pirouette, though many of the dancers are highly trained in classical technique and capable of fluttering battements all day long. The group shapes are equally simple: lines of dancers either vertical, horizontal or diagonal on the stage. Large groups moving in a circle like a folk dance appear again and again. From seemingly ordinary movements and shapes, Morris has created dances that are so much more than the sum of their parts that it’s hard to imagine how anyone could replicate his achievement. For his company’s 30th anniversary, he brought a program of classic pieces that illustrate his work’s tremendous depth and range to Jacob’s Pillow last week (a run of performances sadly curtailed by Hurricane Irene. My condolences to anyone who had tickets for Sunday.) “Resurrection,” from 2002, seems to be a dream — a gloriously silly one — in which a couple in moon-and-stars pajamas gets caught up in a stylish murder mystery (the music is Richard Rodgers’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”).  Surrounded by dancers in sharp black-and-white suits (each one a different pattern and designed by Isaac Mizrahi), the couple (Noah Vinson and Maile Okamura) become part of the story. First he shoots her, then she shoots him.To his basic vocabulary, Morris adds a few more signature moves: the dancers hitch-kick (one knee goes up, then the other foot, sometimes catching someone else in the jaw), they swivel their hips, they reach their arms out straight and drop their hands down at the wrist, all to create a big movie musical-style number.  At the end, the two dreamers are hoisted onto the shoulders of the others, where they kiss.  Corny but perfect. “10 Suggestions,” a solo Morris originally created for himself, was mostly improvised, but now that it’s danced by others the movements have been set. Amber Star Merkens, in silky pajamas, danced with a hoop, a chair and a hat, combining the pretty and the disturbing. She pulled out a yellow ribbon from her midsection as if it were a piece of viscera, swirled it like a rhythmic gymnast, until she abruptly took a scissors and cut it in two.  Colin Fowler played the staccato piano score by Alexander Tcherepnin.  As is always the case in Morris’ choreography, the movements closely followed the rhythms and inflections of the score — usually in a way that illuminated the music, but sometimes here in a way that seemed to just mimic it. For “DancingHoneymoon,” soprano Danya Katok sings a suite of songs from the ’30s and’40s — well-known ones like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and novelty songs like “And Her Mother Came Too.” The seven dancers, in smart casual wear, pair up, swap partners, and sometimes end up in threesomes.  They play with folding chairs, tipping them, falling over (just in time to the music) and tossing them back and forth. Sometimes it’s tongue- in-cheek, sometimes swoonily romantic, often both. Finally, the great “V,” in reference to the gorgeous Quintet in E flat by Schumann, set for five instruments: string quartet and piano. Two dance groups, one in vibrant blue, the other in sage green, make Vs in lines and circles. It’s romantic, lush and touching, and a satisfying conclusion to a program, a Jacob’s Pillow season and 30 years of brilliant creation.