The Mark and Misha Show

By Martha Duffy

Sounds in the summer air:

"The songbird yearned to sing a love song . . ."

"Do you need a beverage or a minuet?"

"We are all sexless, like a line of alphabet letters in a classroom."

Welcome to White Oak Plantation, an outpost of paradise that slipped the Lord's notice when he expunged the rest of Eden. Gazelles and antelope play here. Tigers roam. In the streams black-necked swans bob through the absurdities of their mating ritual. Perhaps even Terpsichore darts about in * the shadows, inspiring a menagerie of humans who have come to the plantation to prepare an innovative evening of dance.

White Oak is a 7,500-acre estate along the St. Marys River, which separates part of Georgia and Florida. Presided over by Howard Gilman, who owns the Gilman Paper Co., this preserve -- part breeding farm for endangered animals, part Thoroughbred stables -- could be described as either utopian or feudal. Through the years Gilman has nurtured the wildlife program, which includes 26 species of mammals and 30 varieties of birds, like a latter-day Sun King. Gilman has also been an enthusiastic patron of dance, and when his friend Mikhail Baryshnikov was looking for a good spot to prepare a tour of new works by his friend, choreographer Mark Morris, Gilman decided to pitch in. Within three weeks he had an air-conditioned studio flung up, with a nice springy floor and sophisticated lighting -- for dancers, Shangri-La.

The Baryshnikov-Morris tour, scheduled for 17 U.S. cities in October and November, would seem about as likely a partnership as the owl and the pussycat. Baryshnikov, 42, the pre-eminent male dancer of the 1970s and '80s, defined the great classical ballet roles. Morris, 34, is a brilliant and somewhat unruly postmodern choreographer. Baryshnikov dances "up," every graceful move a dismissal of gravity. Morris, a marvelous performer as well, is blunt and emphatic. Where the one leaps high, the other stamps down, like the folk dancer he was as a teenager.

After resigning as artistic director of American Ballet Theater a year ago, Baryshnikov thought of quitting dancing too. But despite chronic knee problems, he admits, "it's neither easy nor pleasant to leave the stage. I never thought I'd spend my last years as a modern dancer, but it's important now to work with someone I admire." He had danced Morris' work earlier and spotted him as someone who saw dance the way he did, musically. "Mark decodes a composer's thought," Baryshnikov says. "He uses dance like an extra instrument." As for Morris, he seized on "Misha's" special lyricism at once: "He's a fabulous phraser, and I really do think he is that strange poet in Les Sylphides."

In the studio Morris is the galvanizing leader. Tossing his long black curls, he tears into every move, often with a soda can in hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. "Shall we start with the frustrating part or the even more frustrating part just ahead of it?" he asks his eight dancers, speaking of a passage in a rather classical-looking piece he is setting to a showy swatch of Saint-Saens. When people start tiring, he is reluctant to lose momentum, but when he offers a choice of beverages or minuets in mock airline- ese, the choice is soft drinks. The ensemble work looks odd at first because Morris rarely distinguishes between men and women. Boy may lift girl, or another boy. The dancers love it.

Beside the effervescent Morris, Baryshnikov is rather severe, intently examining the image in the mirror when he is dancing, contemplating Morris with a fixed eye when he isn't. His gaze looks critical, but that's not the case. "I try to figure out the way he works and anticipate him," Baryshnikov says cheerfully. "But I never do."

One rehearsal session is devoted to a little nifty called Going Away Party, set to Bob Wills' country-and-western songs. As the dancers, who have never performed together before, try to get the dynamics of the piece into their bones, Merle Haggard's voice drawls out Yearning and its songbird over and over. The steps speed up; at one point a square dance veers scarily into a frantic game of musical chairs.

To anyone who observes the brio of these rehearsals, as well as the total lack of temperamental combustion, it seems clear that there is the embryo of a new troupe here. For dance fans the notion is very attractive. Things are stale now in both ballet and modern dance. The prolific Morris -- who says, "I can make up a thousand steps; my problem is deciding what to keep" -- has shown an affinity for classical movement. It could be a dream linking. Baryshnikov, however, doesn't think a White Oak Company is in the cards. Speaking of dancers in the group, he says, "We're a group of company leavers. Kate Johnson left Paul Taylor, Rob Besserer left Lar Lubovitch, others left Boston Ballet." Nevertheless, if the fall outings are successful, the group will tour in the spring of 1991, perhaps including Europe.

Right now the program is set with the same four pieces each evening, Baryshnikov dancing all performances. Will it stay that way? Don't bet on it. Looking out over a dappled glade that leads down to the river, Morris says, "I like to see people do what they're not expected to do. I like to see how slow things relate to fast things, I like charged-up rhythm. One reason I make up dance concerts is that then I have something to watch that I like." A thousand steps onward.