The music man; Mark Morris at BAM.(Brooklyn Academy of Music)(dance)

Mark Morris has said that he likes music better than dance. The mere fact that the Mark Morris Dance Group always performs to live music is remarkable. (Almost all modern-dance companies now use tape.) Then there is the matter of quality. If, of an evening in New York, you want to hear some good music, go to a Mark Morris show. Yo-Yo Ma has played for the Morris dancers. Deborah Voigt and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson have sung for them. The first time I saw Morris's "Bedtime," I missed much of the dancing because I couldn't take my eyes off Lieberson, who was declaiming Schubert's "Erlkonig" as if it were a national emergency.

For the company's recent season at the ...