Morris, Mark (1956– )

US choreographer and dancer. His ballets merge various styles ranging from avant-garde, ballet, folk, and jazz dance. He founded the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York in 1980 and was artistic director of the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels 1988–91.

His company made its Lincoln Center, New York, debut in 1995, performing L'Allegro. Later that year, the company filmed Dido and Aeneas and conducted its first tour of the UK. In 1997, Morris's production of Platée with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, premiered, and the company won its first Laurence Olivier Award for the UK premiere performances of L'Allegro with the English National Opera.

In 1994, Mark Morris and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma collaborated on a film for television, Falling Down Stairs, set to Bach's Third Suite for unaccompanied cello. Broadcast in 1998, the program won an Emmy Award. In 2001 the company opened its Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn and inaugurated its dance school. In the same year, the company received a second Laurence Olivier Award for its London season, which included the world premiere of V. In 2003, Morris created a piece on the leading men of American ballet theatre for a US television special.