Allan Ulrich for Dance Magazine

That fun aesthetic (if you can call it such), initially articulated in 1980 by choreographer Mark Morris, has never been entirely discarded. These days, the Mark Morris Dance Group has its fun everywhere–at least in the English-speaking world–from the cavernous, slightly seedy London Coliseum to the 600-seat Van Duzer Theater at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. The merriment is not universally appreciated: Continental Europe, where Tanztheater angst is served in packets like freeze-dried chicken soup in lunch boxes, remains suspicious of dancers, at least these dancers, having fun. This year, however, the company will have a different kind of fun.