VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Mark Morris, the American dancer, choreographer, and artistic director, comes to the Menil Collection for a conversation with Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch, Thursday, January 14, 2010, at 7:30 pm. Their discussion will introduce the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Houston performances at Wortham Theater Center, January 15-16, presented by Society for the Performing Arts.

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.

Among the works created during his tenure were three evening-length dances: The Hard Nut; L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; and Dido and Aeneas. In 1990, he founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris is also much in demand as a ballet choreographer. He has created seven works for the San Francisco Ballet since 1994 and received commissions from American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet, and the Boston Ballet, among others. His work is also in the repertory of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, New Zealand Ballet, Houston Ballet, English National Ballet, and The Royal 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 has received nine honorary doctorates to date. In 2006, Morris received the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Mayor’s Award for Arts & Culture and a WQXR Gramophone Special Recognition Award. 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. Morris is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. In 2007, he received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival lifetime achievement award.

The evening with Mark Morris and Stanton Welch continues a program created by SPA and The Menil Collection to present great American performing artists off the stage in an intimate and conversational setting. Earlier programs have brought Bill T. Jones and Laurie Anderson to speak at the Menil; this summer, Menil, ART PIX, microcinema international and SPA presented a memorial tribute to Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg, screening filmed performances of their dances on the museum’s front lawn.

Photo of Mark Morris by Amber Darragh.