Mark Morris

Mark Morris was born in Seattle, Washington, where he studied with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. In the early years of his career, he performed with the companies of Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, Eliot Feld, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble. He formed the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) in 1980 and has since created close to 150 works for the company. In addition, he is also an acclaimed ballet choreographer, with twenty works commissioned by ballet companies worldwide. From 1988 to 1991, he was Director of Dance at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. In 1990, he founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Noted for musicality, he has been described as »undeviating in his devotion to music« (The New Yorker). He began conducting performances for MMDG in 2006 and has since conducted at The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Lincoln Center, and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). In 2013 he served as Music Director for the Ojai Music Festival. Morris also works extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera and The Royal Opera Covent Garden, among others.

He was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991 and has received eleven honorary doctorates to date. He has taught at the University of Washington, Princeton University and Tanglewood Music Center.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and has served as an Advisory Board Member for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. He has received the Samuel H. Scripps / American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, the Benjamin Franklin Laureate Prize for Creativity, the International Society for the Performing Arts’ Distinguished Artist Award, the Cal Performances Award of Distinction in the Performing Arts, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Gift of Music Award, and the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award. In 2015, Morris was inducted into the Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York.
In 2001 Mark Morris opened the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, New York, to provide a home for his company, rehearsal space for the dance community, outreach programs for children and seniors, and a school offering dance classes to students of all ages and abilities.
Mark Morris is the subject of a biography, »Mark Morris«, by Joan Acocella, and Marlowe & Company published a volume of photographs and critical essays entitled »Mark Morris’ ›L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato‹: A Celebration«. In 2015, Stephanie Jordan’s book »Mark Morris: Musician-Choreographer« was released. Morris’s memoir, »Out Loud«, co-written with Wesley Stace, was published by Penguin Press in 2021.
With the restaging of »Beaux«, the Vienna State Ballet presents for the first time a work by the important American choreographer.