PBS Telecast Of Morris's Mozart Dances

I'm no aficionado of the dance, but I did want to see choreographer Mark Morris's Mozart Dances because of the uniform praise given it by those who are. And so I last night tuned in to PBS's live telecast of the Mostly Mozart Festival presentation of the work anticipating spending an at least pleasant two hours perched comfortably in front of the Boob Box. I managed to persevere for some thirty minutes or so, and then had to switch off the TV as the presentation was threatening to send my blood pressure straight through the roof.

Impossible.

To watch, that is, without an overwhelming desire to grab by the neck whomever was responsible for directing the camerawork, and while shaking him violently left and right, and up and down, bellowing in his ear, "You can't film dancers in tight closeup while they're dancing ... or from waist to head, or from knees to head, or from ankles to head. You have to film them from floor to head, you moron, and with plenty of floor showing round them. And you can't film a solo dancer in isolation from the surrounding company who, after all, are not there because they couldn't find somewhere else to be. They're actually part of the dance, you see, you bloody ignorant cretin, and the solo dancer's movements make little sense in isolation from them, and vice versa. And furthermore, you simpleminded twit...."

There was plenty more to bellow about into that ignorant director's ear (such as the dance-momentum-destroying extended camera cuts from the dancers to the bloody piano soloist), but you get the idea, I'm certain.

Why oh why should it be so difficult to engage a director who knows what the hell he's doing rather than such a seemingly if not actually art-ignorant incompetent. It doesn't appear to me to be a problem of insoluble proportions.

But then, what do I know.