Britain's love affair with Mark Morris has matured from smitten adoration to loyal appreciation, as regular visits from his company have given us wider and deeper views of his talent. But it is still pretty rare for British fans to be treated to the premiere of a new work and the highlight of last night's programme at the Wells was its unveiling of Morris's latest work, V. The title is partly a reference to the work's accompanying score, Schumann's Quintet in E flat for piano and strings. But it is also the formation from which the dancers first launch themselves, breaking out from a silhouetted V shape into choreography whose rapt, tender romanticism turns out to be angled with startlingly hard edges.
This is a dance of fantastically ambitious extremes. While Morris can confidently fill the stage with bright joyous invention, he can suddenly flatten the dance into the deepest troughs of Schumann's despair - forcing his fleet, grown-up dancers to crawl the stage in an abject crabwise formation that is as visually shocking as it is musically apt. By the end V has embraced so much danger and triumph, wit and melancholy that its jubilant conclusion seems to have been won with as much sweat and vision as Schumann's closing chords. A classic.
Nearly as classic too is Morris's new solo for himself, Peccadillos. It has become a critical cliche to marvel at the delicate grace of which Morris's big bulky body is capable and the speed with which he can modulate style and emotion. But in this little piece we see these qualities afresh. It is set to Satie's piano music for children (played on the dinkiest piano by the excellent Ethan Iverson) whose jerkily unfolding fantasies provoke from Morris a series of equally diminutive, artful vignettes. He does some things Javanese and girlish, jaunty and percussive then subtly turns his body trapped broken and sad.
By comparison with this concentration of effects, I Don't Want to Love seems uncharacteristically skimpy and bland. Even so its features some exhilarating moments where Morris captures the blithe altitude and salty robustness, the floating melody and slapping rhythms of Monteverdi's madrigals to perfection.
It is hard for any work to stand up to the implacable power of Grand Duo, Morris setting of the terrific Lou Harrison score, which is truly one of the masterpieces of the late 20th century. Its atavistic dance forms, carved from stone and lit by flickering torchlight seem ancient in their savagery and yet their searing energy and untramelled imagination feel like a liberating life force.
Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7863 8000.
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