Mark Morris
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Mark Morris (born: August 29, 1956) is an American modern 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 as well as mainstream audiences.
Morris grew up in Seattle, WA 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 Balkan folk dance, and ballet. In the early years of his career, he performed with Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, Eliot Feld, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble.
Morris subsequently moved to New York, where he established his own company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, which debuted in 1980. From 1988 to 1991, it was the resident company at the Théâtre de La Monnaie in Brussels.
In 1990, Morris and Mikhail Baryshnikov established the White Oak Dance Project, a group formed to choreograph and perform new dance.
Since 1994, Morris has created six works on the San Francisco Ballet. He 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 New York City Opera, English National Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, most recently directing and choreographing King Arthur for English National Opera in June, 2006. He is the recipient of eight honorary doctorates.
Notable works of 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 Aeneas (1989), "The Hard Nut (1991), a campy version of The Nutcracker set in the 1960s, 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 The Garden (2001), and the modern dance pieces Grand Duo (1993), V (2002) and All Fours (2004).
Morris and his Dance Group also 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. In casu, 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 its evolution. Morris has also created with visual artists such as Isaac Mizrahi and Howard Hodgkin.
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.
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.
In 2001 his company moved into permanent studios in Brooklyn.
