Mark Morris
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Mark Morris
(born Aug. 29, 1956, Seattle, Wash., U.S.) U.S. dancer and choreographer. He formed the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980. It was the resident company at the Thtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels (198891), returned to the U.S. in 1991, and made its permanent home in Brooklyn in 2001. Known for his daring style, he has choreographed many works for his own company as well as for opera productions and television performances, including The Hard Nut (1991), his modernized version of The Nutcracker.
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Mark Morris
Mark Morris (born 1956) was probably the most versatile choreographer of the second half of the 20th century. His musicality was the basis of his work. He used his compositional skills on all types of music. His movement vocabulary was eclectic.
Mark Morris was born in 1956 in Seattle, Washington. He grew up in a family full of music and dance. His father taught him how to read music. His mother introduced him to flamenco (her favorite dance) at age nine, then to Balkan folk dance and ballet. As a child he created dances for musicals. As a teenager dancing in the Koleda Balkan Folkdance Ensemble, he was already determined to do his own work. His father died when he was in high school, strengthening the bond with his mother. After graduation from high school he spent almost a year in Europe, part of it in Spain, where he continued to study flamenco. Back in Seattle he studied with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson.
Two years later he showed up in New York. He performed with a diverse assortment of companies over the years, including the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Hannah Kahn Dance Company, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, and Eliot Fields Ballet. He started creating dances in a rented studio space at the Merce Cunningham Studio in 1980 and then formed the Mark Morris Dance Group, giving concerts. The beginning years were hard, and the dancers had to take on part-time jobs to pay for food and rent. Reactions to his work were strong. Critics called him the "enfant terrible," and he developed a reputation of being an angry young man with his provocative choreographies. The Mark Morris Dance Group was cohesive. He selected his dancers very carefully, choosing individuals of every color and physical description. He cast without regard to race, rank, or sex. He was enormously proud of his dancers' achievements, and they were a constant source of his inspiration.
On a European tour he was "discovered" by the Belgian Mortier, director of the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, who offered Morris the position of director of dance, vacated by Maurice Bejart. Morris accepted, and from 1988 until 1991 he and his dancers worked on regular salaries and in spacious studios. Morris was thrilled to use the resident orchestra and choir for his productions. The three years turned out to be very challenging, as Morris had to content with anti-American sentiment and discrimation because he was homosexual. Although he was very productive, his unhappiness does shine through in a few dark pieces created at the time. (Two examples are "Behemoth", which is performed in silence and "Going Away Party".)
The company was later based in New York, but residencies, such as Dance Umbrella in Boston, required him to live a traveler's life. In 1990 he and Mikhail Baryshnikov founded White Oak Dance Project. This special touring company consisted of dancers from leading ballet and modern dance companies performing many works by Morris.
Morris was tall with a steady frame, copious long curls, and bright blue eyes. He was direct, refreshingly honest, and worked hard and expected the same from his dancers, collaborators, and observers. He was a diverse choreographer and a gifted dancer. His work could be hilarious, shocking, lyrical, raw, beautiful, and satirical, without being vulgar. His choices ranged from popular music of all decades and cultures to religious classical, Vivaldi, and country/western. While choreographing, he held the sheet music, absorbed in the music yet aware of the world outside. He prepared the choreography alone, and in the studio he translated and adjusted his ideas for the dancers. While creating a new dance he sought to perfect the slightest detail, until a dancer felt the emotion, musicality, and rhythm of the movement. The technique he used for his choreographies was eclectic, using different dance styles along with gestures of daily life, performed in a unique and meaningful way. He taught classical ballet in its simplest form. Although he acknowledged that ballet dancers want to defy gravity, as a modern dancer he was constantly challenged by this concept.
In addition to creating over 70 works for his own dance company, beginning in 1980 he also created dances for the Boston Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the Paris Opera Ballet, the White Oak Dance Project, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, among others. He also worked extensively in opera, for instance on a new production of "Le Nozze di Figaro." One of his two masterpieces, created while in residence in Brussels, was "L'Allegro, II Penseroso ed II Moderato." It was his first full-length work to Handel's music of the same name and based on poems by John Milton. Twenty-four dancers weave movement, music, and text together with tenderness and ingenuity. This piece was considered Morris' transition from "enfant terrible" to "true artiste". The second masterpiece was "The Hard Nut," a modern mockery of the conventional Christmas Ballet, "The Nutcracker," with the Tchaikovsky score. Morris' version was placed in the 1960s, breaking through cliches by letting all his dancers, men and women alike, wear tutus in the famous snowflake scene. The costumes and the set were elaborate and done in cartoon character. This ballet was televised and enjoyed by millions. In another choreography, "Dido and Aenas," Morris mixed subtlety and humor. The movements and gestures are drawn from modern and Indian dance, European folk dance, and sign language for the deaf. The diversity of Mark Morris was nearly legendary.
Morris was proclaimed by critics and audiences as "his generation's one and only." He was often mentioned in the same breath with Balanchine. Granted a Bessie Award for choreographic achievement in 1984, he received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1986 and was named a fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991. He recieved the Capezio Dance award in April 1997. By 1995, the Mark Morris Group was the fourth largest modern dance troupe in the United States, with an annual budget of two million dollars.
Further Reading
In Joan Acocella's biography Mark Morris (1993) you will find an overview of the works he created in dance and opera. In "Dance as a Theatre" (1992) you can find an edited transcript of a 1990 British television documentary. Articles appear frequently in many magazines, such as in Rolling Stone, Dance Magazine and People Weekly.
Oxford Dictionary of Dance:
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Mark Morris
Morris, Mark (b Seattle, 29 Aug. 1956). US dancer, choreographer, and company director. He studied flamenco with Verla Flowers and ballet with Perry Brunson in Seattle; also studied flamenco in Madrid. While still a teenager he joined a semi-professional Balkan dance troupe, the Koleda Folk Ensemble, whose communal style exerted a large influence on his later choreography. From 1976 he studied ballet with Maggie Black in New York. He danced with several companies in New York, including those of Eliot Feld, Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, and Laura Dean. In 1980 he founded his own New York-based troupe, the Mark Morris Dance Group, which is today one of the world's leading contemporary dance ensembles. In 1988 his troupe became the resident company at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, with Morris appointed the Monnaie's ballet director, a post previously held by Béjart. During the next three years, using the generous resources of Belgium's national opera house, Morris produced work which confirmed his reputation; L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato is considered to be one of the most significant modern dance works of the 1980s. In 1991 the company returned to America. Morris has worked as a guest choreographer with several ballet companies, including the Joffrey Ballet (Esteemed Guests, mus. C. P. E. Bach, 1986), American Ballet Theatre (Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, mus. Virgil Thomson, 1988), Gong, mus. McPhee, 2000, Paris Opera Ballet (Ein Herz, mus. J. S. Bach, 1990), the Boston Ballet (Mort subite, mus. Poulenc, 1986), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (Paukenschlag, mus. Haydn, 1992, and Quincunx, mus. Donizetti, 1995); and San Francisco Ballet (Maelstrom, mus. Beethoven, 1994, Pacific, mus. Harrison, 1995, and Sandpaper Ballet, mus. Leroy Anderson, 1999). An intensely musical choreographer, he has an enormous range, utilizing everything from the simple everyday movements of folk dance to the sophisticated articulation and pointe work of classical dance. He also made a point of treating men and women as equals in choreographic terms. He is capable of indulging his love of kitsch just as effectively as his love of formal structure, while he can veer from the primal power of a work like Grand Duo to the unabashed sentimentality of a work like New Love Song Waltzes, or the ecstasy of Gloria. And his irreverence can be wonderfully extravagant, as in The Hard Nut, his 1991 Brussels staging of The Nutcracker. Although he has a particular fondness for music of the Baroque period, he is equally comfortable with 20th-century popular music. As a dancer, possessed of a large and bulky frame, he exhibits a surprising grace, while his performance style combines innocence with sophistication. In 1990 he teamed up with Baryshnikov to co-found the White Oak Dance Project. He received the MacArthur Foundation Award, the so-called Genius Award, in 1991. A list of works for his own company includes Castor and Pollux (mus. Partch, 1980), Ten Suggestions (mus. Tcherepnin, 1981), Gloria (mus. Vivaldi, 1981), New Love Song Waltzes (mus. Brahms, 1982), Celestial Greetings (mus. popular Thai, 1983), Dogtown (mus. Yoko Ono, 1983), O Rangasayee (mus. Tyagaraja, 1984), Slugfest (no music, 1984), One Charming Night (mus. Purcell, 1985), Mythologies (mus. Garfein, 1986), Stabat Mater (mus. Pergolesi, 1986), Strict Songs (mus. Harrison, 1987), Scarlatti Solos (mus. Scarlatti, 1987), Offertorium (mus. Schubert, 1988), L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (mus. Handel, 1988), Dido and Aeneas (mus. Purcell, 1989), Love Song Waltzes (mus. Brahms, 1989), Wonderland (mus. Schoenberg, 1989), Behemoth (no mus., 1990), Going Away Party (mus. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, 1990), The Hard Nut (mus. Tchaikovsky, 1991), Beautiful Day (mus. Georg-Melchior Hoffmann, but attrib. Bach, 1992), Bedtime (mus. Schubert, 1992), Three Preludes (mus. Gershwin, 1992), Grand Duo (mus. Harrison, 1993), Mosaic and United (mus. Cowell, 1993), The Office (mus. Dvořák, 1994), Somebody's Coming to See Me Tonight (mus. Stephen Foster, 1995), World Power (mus. Harrison, 1995), I Don't Want To Love (mus. Monteverdi, 1996), Rhymes With Silver (mus. Harrison, 1997), Dancing Honeymoon (mus. various, 1998), The Argument (mus. Schumann, 1999), and V (mus. Schumann, 2001). For White Oak he choreographed Motorcade (mus. Saint-Saëns, 1990), A Lake (mus. Haydn, 1991), and Three Russian Preludes (mus. Shostakovich, 1995). He worked with the composer John Adams, choreographing his operas Nixon in China (Houston Grand Opera, 1987) and The Death of Klinghoffer (Brussels, 1991). He choreographed and directed Rameau's Platée (Royal Opera, 1997) and Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts (English National Opera, 2000). In 1997 he made his Broadway debut, directing and choreographing the Paul Simon musical Capeman. Choreographed the full-length Sylvia (mus. Delibes) for San Francisco Ballet in 2004.
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Mark Morris
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This article is about the 20th and 21st-century choreographer. For other uses, see Mark Morris (disambiguation).
| Mark Morris | |
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 Mark Morris, 2008 (Photograph by Klaus Lucka) |
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| Born | 29 August 1956 Seattle, Washington, United States |
| Occupation | Artistic director, dancer, choreographer, conductor, opera director |
| Website | |
| www.mmdg.org | |
Mark William Morris (born 29 August 1956) is an American dancer, choreographer and director whose work is acclaimed for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor, and at times eclectic musical accompaniments. Morris is popular among dance aficionados, the music world, as well as mainstream audiences.
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Biography
Early years
Morris grew up in Seattle, Washington, in a family that appreciated music and dance and nurtured his budding talents; his father taught him how to read music and his mother Maxine introduced him to flamenco, and ballet. He studied as a young boy with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. At the age of 16, after graduating early from high school, he traveled to Spain where, at the time, he felt he was destined to be a Flamenco dancer. However, because of the Franco regime, among other things, he returned to the United States. He moved to New York City in 1976 and lived in a loft in Hoboken, New Jersey, with other artists who also performed in the city. In the early years of his career, he performed with the companies of Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, and Eliot Feld.
Career
On November 28, 1980, he got together a group of his friends and put on a concert of his own choreography and called them the Mark Morris Dance Group. For the first several years, the company gave just two annual performances - at On the Boards in Seattle, Washington, and at Dance Theater Workshop in New York. In 1986, the company was featured on the nationally televised Great Performances - Dance in America series on PBS.
In 1988, he was approached by Gerard Mortier, then the head of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. Mortier needed a replacement when Maurice Béjart, who had held the position of Director of Dance for over 20 years, suddenly left and took his company with him. After seeing the Mark Morris Dance Group give one performance, Mortier offered Morris the position. His company, from 1988 to 1991, became the Monnaie Dance Group Mark Morris, the resident company at La Monnaie where Morris was given well-equipped offices and studios; full health insurance for him, his staff and dancers; an orchestra and chorus at his disposal; and one of the great stages of Europe on which to dance.
In 1990, Morris and Mikhail Baryshnikov established the White Oak Dance Project. He continued to create works for this company until 1995.
He is much in demand as a ballet choreographer, most notably with San Francisco Ballet, for which he has created eight works. He has also received commissions from such companies as American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, English National Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, among others. He directed and choreographed King Arthur for English National Opera in June, 2006, and in May 2007 he directed and choreographed Orfeo ed Euridice for the Metropolitan Opera. He is the recipient of 11 honorary doctorates.
Notable works by Mark Morris include Gloria (1981), set to Vivaldi; Championship Wrestling (1985), based on an essay by Roland Barthes; L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1988); Dido and Æneas (1989); The Hard Nut (1991), his version of The Nutcracker set in the 1970s; The Office (1995); Greek to Me (2000); a dance version of the Virgil Thomson–Gertrude Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts (2001); the ballet A Garden (2001); Grand Duo (1993); V (2002) and All Fours (2004). In 2006, he premiered his Mozart Dances, commissioned by the New Crowned Hope Festival and Mostly Mozart Festival in conjunction with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart; and in 2008, his controversial Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, set to Prokofiev's recently discovered, original scenario and score, had its premiere. In 2011, he premiered the 150th work of his professional career, Festival Dance, to critical acclaim during sold out performances at his dance center in Brooklyn, NY.
Morris and his Dance Group collaborated with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in Falling Down Stairs, a film by Barbara Willis Sweete available on Ma's Inspired by Bach series, volume 2. There, Morris choreographed a dance based on Bach's Third Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, which Ma performs. Sweete's film depicts the performance as well as the evolution of the dance. Morris has also collaborated with visual artists such as Isaac Mizrahi, Howard Hodgkin, Charles Burns and Stephen Hendee.
In 2001 his company moved into its first permanent headquarters in the United States, the Mark Morris Dance Center, in Brooklyn, located at 3 Lafayette Avenue in the Fort Greene neighborhood. 2001 also marked the establishment of The School at the Mark Morris Dance Center. In addition to being the home of the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Center houses rehearsal space for the dance community, outreach programs for local children, and a school offering dance classes to students of all ages.
Morris is the subject of a biography, Mark Morris (1993), by dance critic Joan Acocella. In 2001, Morris published L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration, a volume of photographs and critical essays.
Though now largely retired from performing, Mark Morris was long noted for the musicality and power of his dancing as well as his amazing delicacy of movement. His body was heavier than the typical dancer, more like that of an average person, yet his technical and expressive abilities outstripped those of most of his contemporaries.
Honors and Awards
- 11 Honorary Doctorates (Cornish School of the Arts, 2011; Roehampton University, 2010; Centenary College, 2009; Bard College, 2006; Bates College, 2006; George Mason University, 2005; Bowdoin College, 2003; Pratt Institute, 2003; Long Island University, 2002; The Juilliard School, 2001; Boston Conservatory of Music, 1994)
- Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, 2010
- American Philosophical Society, Member, 2008
- The Independent Award, Brown University Club of New York, 2007
- Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007
- WQXR Gramophone Special Recognition Award, 2006
- New York City Mayor's Award for Arts & Culture, 2006
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Fellow, 2005
- Laurence Olivier Award (UK), Outstanding Achievement in Dance, 2002
- Critics' Circle National Dance Award (UK), Best Modern Choreography, 2002
- Critics' Circle National Dance Award (UK), Best Foreign Dance Company, 2002
- Time Out Live Awards (UK), Outstanding Production (V), 2002
- County of Los Angeles Distinguished Artist Award, 2001
- New York State Governor's Arts Award, 2001
- Best of Boston, Mark Morris & Yo-Yo Ma, Best Duet, 1999
- Laurence Olivier Award (UK), Best New Dance Production (L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato), 1998
- Evening Standard Award (UK), 1997
- Capezio Achievement Award, 1997
- Scotsman/Hamada Trust Festival Prize, Edinburgh Festival, 1995
- Edinburgh International Critics Award, 1994
- Edinburgh International Critics Award, 1992
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship, 1991
- Dance Magazine Award, 1991
- John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1986
- New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie"), 1984, 1990, 2007
- Numerous honors include Choreographic Fellowships from the New York and New Jersey State Councils on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Ballets by Mark Morris
Morris has created eight works for the San Francisco Ballet since 1994, including the first American production of Delibes Sylvia (ballet); three works for American Ballet Theatre including Gong with music by Colin McPhee and Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes with music by Virgil Thomson; and has also received commissions from The Joffrey Ballet and the Boston Ballet, among others. In 2009, the San Francisco Ballet toasted 15 years of brilliant collaborations with Mark Morris by presenting the first All-Morris program, performing A Garden (2001), Joyride (2008) and Sandpaper Ballet (1999). His work is in the repertory of Ballet British Columbia, Ballet West, Boston Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and The Washington Ballet. Morris' ballets have also been performed by English National Ballet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, The Royal Ballet, and The Royal New Zealand Ballet. They have been noted for making ballet more accessible to audiences that ordinarily find dance and specifically ballet too difficult to consume.
Ballet commissions
- Mort Subite -- Boston Ballet (1986)
- Esteemed Guests -- Joffrey Ballet (1986)
- Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes -- American Ballet Theatre (1988)
- Ein Herz -- Paris Opera Ballet (1990)
- Paukenschlag -- Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1992)
- Maelstrom -- San Francisco Ballet (1994)
- Quincunx -- Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1995)
- Pacific -- San Francisco Ballet (1995)
- Sandpaper Ballet -- San Francisco Ballet (1999)
- A Garden -- San Francisco Ballet (2001)
- Gong -- American Ballet Theatre (2001)
- Later -- San Francisco Ballet (2002)
- Non Troppo -- American Ballet Theatre (2003)
- Sylvia -- San Francisco Ballet (2004)
- Up and Down -- Boston Ballet (2006)
- Joyride -- San Francisco Ballet (2008)
- Beaux -- San Francisco Ballet (2012)
Operas by Mark Morris
Mark Morris has worked extensively in opera for over 20 years, directing and choreographing productions for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera, Seattle Opera, and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, among others. In 2009, in honor of the bicentennial of Joseph Haydn's death, Gotham Chamber Opera presented the New York City stage premiere of Haydn's L'isola disabitata (Desert Island), in a new production by Mark Morris at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College., rev.
Productions directed and/or choreographed
- Salome -- Choreographer (Seattle Opera, 1986)
- Nixon in China -- Choreographer (Houston Grand Opera, 1987)
- Orphée et Euridice -- Choreographer (Seattle Opera, 1988)
- Die Fledermaus -- Director (Seattle Opera, 1988)
- Le nozze di Figaro (Act III wedding scene) -- Choreographer (PepsiCo Summerfare, 1988)
- Dido and Aeneas -- Director and Choreographer (La Monnaie, 1989)
- The Death of Klinghoffer -- Choreographer (La Monnaie, 1991)
- Le nozze di Figaro -- Director (La Monnaie, 1991)
- Orfeo ed Euridice -- Director and Choreographer (Handel & Haydn Society, 1996)
- Platée -- Director and Choreographer (Royal Opera, 1997)
- Four Saints in Three Acts -- Director and Choreographer (English National Opera, 2000)
- Idomeneo (Act III ballet) -- Choreographer (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 2003)
- King Arthur -- Director and Choreographer (English National Opera, 2006)
- Orfeo ed Euridice -- Director and Choreographer (The Metropolitan Opera, 2007)
- L'isola d'isabitata -- Director (Gotham Chamber Opera, 2009)
In 2011, The Metropolitan Opera revived its 2007 production of Orfeo ed Euridice, directed by Mark Morris, and premiered John Adams' Nixon in China, choreographed by Mark Morris in 1987 but never before seen on a New York stage. The later was filmed and broadcast as part of The Met's Live in HD series with Peter Sellers directing.
Conductor
In 2006, for the opening of MMDG's 25th anniversary New York season, the company performed Morris' much revered www.mmdg.org/Gloria (1981, rev. 1984) set to Vivaldi's Gloria in D. Morris took up the baton for the first time to conduct the MMDG Music Ensemble and the Juilliard Choral Union. In 2007, he began conducting performances of his opera Dido and Aeneas (1989). He has also led Emmanuel Music, the Seattle Symphony and the Tudor Choir in performance. In the summer of 2011, he lead the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir in a collaboration with MMDG at the Prospect Park Bandshell, part of a Mark Morris Dance Group program presented by Celebrate Brooklyn! In September 2011, he conducted Dido again with MMDG, this time with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale; mezzo Stephanie Blythe, singing both Dido and the Sorceress; and baritone Philip Cutlip as Aeneas.
References
External links
- Official website
- The Metropolitan Opera: Features: Orfeo ed Euridice
- Salon interview (1999)
- More on L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato from markmorrisdancegroup.org
- Official website of Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare (2008)
- Archival footage of Mark Morris Dance Group performing Falling Down Stairs in 1994 at Jacob's Pillow
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Oxford Dictionary of Dance
The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Copyright © 2000, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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Mentioned in
Mark Morris Dance Group: Hard Nut
(1993 Dance Film)
Behemoth
(modern dance)
One Charming Night
(modern dance)
Stabat Mater
(work)
Dido and Aeneas
(modern dance)
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