Leaps and Bows

No, Mark Morris is not going to play the cello, and Yo-Yo Ma won’t don a leotard. But they will offer a unique collaboration this weekend in sold-out performances at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Dancer-choreographer Morris and cellist Ma normally appeal to separate constituencies. Tonight, they pool their drawing power with Ma performing in accompaniment to the Mark Morris Dance Group.

Ma will play scores by Bach (for “Falling Down Stairs”) and Lou Harrison (for “Rhymes With Silver”).

Morris and Ma began taking inspiration from each other during a PBS film project they did jointly. Such crossovers are becoming more popular.

In fact, New York’s Lincoln Center is offering a series of like-minded duos this season, among them dancer Bill T. Jones with soprano Jessye Norman and other collaborators who can address such theatrically potent music as Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” and Mahler’s ‘Kindertotenlieder.”

Morris has always insisted on working with live music.

“Why would a music audience be interested in a tired old dance show with canned sound?” he asked in a telephone interview from his Eastside Manhattan apartment.

But even the most persuasive advocate might not be able to lure a concert star of the caliber of Ma to a stage peopled with dancers, arguably the liveliest and most watchable of artists.

What turned the program into a full evening with Ma--he already was scheduled to play the Bach and Harrison scores--was Morris’s new dance, “The Argument,” set to Schumann’s “Funf Stucke im Volkston.”

A friend had suggested the music to the choreographer last summer. Ma knew the piece and agreed to add it. “The Argument” became a work choreographed for the tour and as a tribute to Howard Gilman, who died in January 1998. The White Oak benefactor had asked Morris to choreograph “another dance for Misha,” referring to Mikhail Baryshnikov.”

Baryshnikov appeared with Morris’ company tour dates in Boston and New York.

“He only agreed to those two,” said Morris, who, at first, jointly ran the White Oak Project with the Russian dancer. “But Misha’s absence now doesn’t lessen the show at all.”

(As it turns out, Baryshnikov will perform “The Argument” at UCLA’s Royce Hall, June 23-27, with his White Oak ensemble.)

Last fall, Morris himself appeared on that stage, looking quite different. Gone were the signature tresses (dark, shoulder-length ringlets) and the famous jutting jaw. Although Morris always has been relatively big and burly, many extra pounds and a haircut had transformed him into a round-faced dancer who did his share of huffing and puffing,

Why the change?

“I don’t like signatures, for starters,” he said. “But long hair isn’t necessary when I’m not dancing ‘Dido and Aeneas.’ ”

The irreverent Morris devoutly avoids conformity. Once, when asked why he abandoned his ballet career, he explained: “I got tired of pretending to be a straight guy in love with a ballerina.” Not surprisingly, Morris’ company is an assortment of dancers of irregular sizes and shapes.

At 42, Morris says he’d give up dancing “only if I got sick of it.”

While he considers himself “older and uglier” as a performer, he has an ace in the hole: “I’m the choreographer, so if I can’t jump anymore, I make dances without jumps. Or I exit, and someone else does the jumps, and then I come back on.”

Morris said he still feels a sting over Paul Simon’s “Capeman,” which Morris directed. The $11 million Broadway show folded last year weeks after receiving surpassingly negative reviews. Morris admitted that “it was a giant flop. . . .

“But it taught me that a lot of things I had thought about Broadway are correct. It’s not about musical theater anymore. It’s about lowest common denominator. It’s a serious, cutthroat business. The show ‘Titanic’ didn’t do anything for me, and it’s still running. I’m not necessarily right. It won awards. “Still ‘Capeman’ was a fabulously good show, and I adore Paul Simon more than I did before, even. He’s a wonderful, brilliant man.”

* Mark Morris Dance GroupCand Yo-Yo Ma, cello, with Ethan Iverson on piano, perform at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. 8 p.m. tonight, through Sunday. Sold out. (949) 854-4646.