Mark Morris in pictures

Seeing Mark Morris's "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato" at the Paramount this weekend was like getting a DVD enhanced with special features. In addition to the wonders of the company's performance, with live music by the Seattle Symphony and vocalists, you could step into the lobby bar and see a 20-year portrait retrospective of Morris, beginning in 1984.

Cameras love dancers, who live so intensely in their bodies and long to be admired. Morris clearly returns the love. He allowed his moves to be choreographed by some heavyweights of the photography world. For Annie Leibovitz, he stripped nude and posed reclining on a sofa in a lush garden glen, a la the jungle enchantress in Henri Rousseau's famous painting "The Dream." For William Wegman, he sat in a studio on a vintage suitcase, coffee-cup in hand, in a vaguely surreal setting with a mirror and mannequin leg: symbols of his trade.

The first image in the show, a 1984 photo by Peggy Jarrell Kaplan, recalls Morris as I first remember seeing him — doe-eyed under a tangle of dark curls, part satyr, part altar boy — frolicking with his young dance company at the funky old On The Boards on Capitol Hill. At the time, he was a quirky and charismatic dancer. Now in his fifties and portly, Morris the choreographer watches his troupe from the house.

Faced with other shooters over the years, Morris sometimes clowned or vamped. He lunged barechested toward Max Vadukul's camera, scowling like a macho thug wih a beer bottle in hand. In 2002, with a daisy in his teeth, Morris sported for Martin Schoeller, wearing a checkered suit against a backdrop of checks.

When I see photographs of dancer/choreogapher Merce Cunningham, I see an artist, clear-eyed, self-possessed. With Morris, I see a consummate performer, a chameleon, whose dances, like his personae, mix high-drama and camp, limpid beauty and coarse revelry.

Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com