Choreographer

Mark Morris (Image © Amber Darragh)

Mark Morris was born on August 29, 1956, in Seattle, Washington, where he studied as a young man with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. In the early years of his career, he performed with Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, Eliot Feld, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble. He formed the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980 and has since created more than 120 works for the company. From 1988-1991, he was Director of Dance at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the national opera house of Belgium. In 1990, he founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris, much in demand as a ballet choreographer, has created seven works for the San Francisco Ballet since 1994 and received commissions from American Ballet Theatre, The Joffrey Ballet, Les Grand Ballets Canadiens, and the Boston Ballet, among others.  His work has also been performed by various international companies, including Ballet British Columbia, English National Ballet, Geneva Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and The Washington Ballet. Morris is noted for his musicality and has been described as “undeviating in his devotion to music.”  He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera, and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Morris was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received eight honorary doctorates to date. He is the subject of a biography by Joan Acocella (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Marlowe & Company published a volume of photographs and critical essays entitled Mark Morris’ L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration.  In 2001, he opened the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, NY, his company's first permanent headquarters in the U.S., housing rehearsal space for the dance community, outreach programs for local children, as well as a school offering dance classes to students of all ages. For more information, visit www.mmdg.org.

Biography courtesy of Mark Morris Dance Group