In contrast, the singers are asked to move like snails, their deliberate, ritualized walks hint, as has become a convention for “Akhnaten,” at Robert Wilson.

Crivelli agrees, and points to another culture whose ritualized dances feature a similar expression in a threatening fashion: the Māori of New Zealand.

Mr. Morris does not so much tell the Layla-Majnun story as refract it, ritualize it, multiply it.