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Mark Morris
(August 29, 1956 - living) U.S.A.

Mark Morris

Dancer, choreographer

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Gay dancer and world-renowned choreographer, born in Seattle, Washington, where he studied dance as a young man with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. He performed with a variety of companies in the early years of his career, including the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Hannah Kahn Dance Company, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble.

In 1976, he joined the Elliot Field Ballet; in 1980, he started his own troupe, The Mark Morris Dance Group and has since created more than 90 works for it, as well as more than a dozen commissions for ballet companies, including the San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre.

For three years (1988-1991), he was directory of Belgium's State Opera House. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a "genius" fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation in 1991. Morris is the subject of a biography by Joan Acocella.

Still viewed as a naughty enfant terrible at times, he says, "My philosophy of dance? I make it up and you watch it. End of philosophy." When asked how his work would be different if he wasn't gay, he responds, " 'What if I were normal?' That's what it really means. And I spit on that. I am normal. I'm a very successful artist. I'm good, I do good work, and I'm gay. Get over it, Mary."

Morris moved from dancer to choreographer because he "got sick of pretending to be in love with ballerinas." Morris has used music by gay composers Stephen Foster and Lou Harrison in some of his work.

He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing a Royal Opera, Covent Garden production of Rameau's Platée that premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1997 and at the New York City Opera in 2000. Most recently, he directed and choreographed the English National Opera production of Four Saints in Three Acts.

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