Member Since: 2/5/2007
Band Website: mmdg.org
Band Members:
MARK MORRIS
DANCERS / STAFF
Influences: Growing up in Seattle
"The high school I went to had a fabulous African drumming ensemble that was headed by a teacher from what was still called Rhodesia - that shows how old I am. There was a Samoan musical group. I had lots of Japanese friends and I used to dance looking ridiculous with a fan and a hapi coat." MM
Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble
"It was a whole subculture of nuts who did what was then called international folk dancing. It was just a wonderful community of people who were friendly and welcoming and odd. That's how I learned to hold hands and dance with other people and not stick out and not show I was intellectually independent of rhythm." MM
Flamenco, José Greco
"I had the great good fortune to take a workshop with him when I was 11, and I made up my mind then and there that I wanted to be a flamenco dancer. Then I went to study in Madrid and I decided that wasn't the way to go. I think Francisco Franco had something to do with it. I was just coming out as a queer, and if you were a fag in Spain, you were essentially executed." MM
A Company
"Lar Lubovitch said to me, 'You're not going to start a dance company, are you?' I guess he was thinking that it's very hard, and it is hard. You're doing so many things and working with all these personalities, several of them your own. I really just wanted to make up dances and it never occurred to me that you needed a company to do that. I just asked my friends, who were all eager to do it." MM
Sounds Like:
Widening the definitions and boundaries of traditional forms
Notable musicians to which Morris has choreographed (highlights):
Lou Harrison
Yoko Ono
The Violent Femmes
Henry Purcell
Béla Bartók
W. A. Mozart
J. S. Bach
George Frideric Handel
P. I. Tchaikovsky
Henry Cowell
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Léo Delibes
Stephen Foster
Virgil Thomson
Musical Collaborations (highlights):
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
The Bad Plus
Yo-Yo Ma
Emanuel Ax
Matt Haimovitz
ARTEK
John Adams
Paul Simon
Deborah Voigt
Philharmonia Baroque
William Winant
Handel & Haydn Society
Western Caravan
Commissioned scores by:
Hershel Garfein
Michelle Shocked and Rob Wasserman
Lou Harrison
Zakir Hussain
The Bad Plus
Type of Label: None