Mark Morris Dance Group

1980 1980 Entry 0 On November 28, the Mark Morris Dance Group puts on its first show at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York City.
1981 1981 Entry 0 Morris choreographs Gloria.
MMDG debuts at New York City’s Dance Theater Workshop.
1982 1982 Entry 0 The Dance Group returns to DTW with another ambitious work for ten people. Joan Acocella writes "New Love Song Waltzes was to love what Gloria was to religion… Together, the two works announced Morris’s humanistic strain, his effort to reclaim the great themes, and the great music that went with them, for modern bodies and souls."
1983 1983 Entry 0 The Dance Group receives wide international exposure with Arlene Croce’s Mark Morris Comes to Town, published in The New Yorker.
1984 1984 Entry 0 MMDG premieres in London at The Place, presented by Dance Umbrella.
The company performs the first of its twenty seasons at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
1985 1985 Entry 0 MMDG begins its life as a touring company, performing at the Kennedy Center and in Paris at the American Center, with additional engagements in Boston and Portland, Oregon, and at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. and PepsiCo Summerfare.
1986 1986 Entry 0 The company appears in its first television program, for PBS’s Great Performances—Dance in America.
MMDG debuts in Vienna. Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival presents the first of nineteen appearances to date.
Entry 1 Morris choreographs Mort Subite for the Boston Ballet and Esteemed Guests for the Joffrey Ballet.
1987 1987 Entry 0 Morris choreographs John Adams’s Nixon in China, the first of numerous collaborations with director Peter Sellars, set designer Adrianne Lobel, and lighting designer James F. Ingalls.
1988 1988 Entry 0 The company moves to Brussels.
Entry 1 Monnaie Dance Group/Mark Morris debuts as the official dance company of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, the Belgian national opera house, with the premiere of L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.
1989 1989 Entry 0 Dido and Aeneas receives its world premiere in Brussels and its American premiere in Boston.
1990 1990 Entry 0 The Hidden Soul of Harmony, a documentary focusing on the company in Belgium, is broadcast on London Weekend Television’s South Bank Show.
Entry 1 Morris founds the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov.
1991 1991 Entry 0 The Hard Nut, Morris’s Nutcracker, premieres in Brussels.
Entry 1 MMDG returns to the United States.
1992 1992 Entry 0 MMDG conducts the first of three annual six-week residencies in Boston.
The company makes the first of six consecutive appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Entry 1 The Hard Nut has its American stage premiere at BAM and its television premiere on PBS’s Great Performances.
1993 1993 Entry 0 Mark Morris, a biography by Joan Acocella, is published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
1994 1994 Entry 0 MMDG debuts in Australia with a month-long engagement at the Adelaide Festival.
Entry 1 The San Francisco Ballet premieres Maelstrom, the first of its six commissions.
1995 1995 Entry 0 MMDG makes its debut at Lincoln Center’s New York State Theater.
Entry 1 The company films Dido and Aeneas.
Entry 2 MMDG embarks on its first major UK tour.
MMDG receives the Hamada Prize, Edinburgh Festival’s highest honor.
1996 1996 Entry 0 MMDG makes a commitment to perform exclusively with live music.
1997 1997 Entry 0 London premiere of L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with the English National Opera wins a Laurence Olivier Award.
Entry 1 Lucky Charms is performed for PBS’s Evening at Pops.
Entry 2 The company makes its Asian debut at the Hong Kong Festival.
1998 1998 Entry 0 Yo-Yo Ma and Mark Morris collaborate on Falling Down Stairs, an Emmy–award-winning television film.
Entry 1 MMDG launches a $7.4 million capital campaign to build a dance center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
1999 1999 Entry 0 MMDG goes on a multi-city U.S. tour with Yo-Yo Ma.
Entry 1 The San Francisco Ballet premieres Sandpaper Ballet, Morris’s third commission for this company.
2000 2000 Entry 0 MMDG collaborates with the New York City Opera, presenting the New York premiere of Platée.
Entry 1 The company premieres Four Saints in Three Acts with ENO at the London Coliseum.
Four Saints is the subject of the second South Bank Show documentary about the company.
2001 2001 Entry 0 The company’s twentieth anniversary is celebrated with a three-week BAM retrospective.
Entry 1 L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration is published by Marlow & Company.
Entry 2 The Krannert Center in Urbana, Illinois, makes a multi-year commitment to present the company annually.
Entry 3 The Mark Morris Dance Center at the Erickson Building opens in Brooklyn.
2002 2002 Entry 0 Cal Performances in Berkeley becomes the company’s official second home.
Resurrection, set to Richard Rodgers’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is filmed for PBS’s Evening at Pops.
Entry 1 MMDG premieres at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
The company tours Japan with Yo-Yo Ma.
2003 2003 Entry 0 Morris creates Non Troppo on four leading men of American Ballet Theatre for PBS television.
Entry 1 MMDG is the first dance company to appear at the Tanglewood Music Festival, conducting a week-long residency and performing with Yo-Yo Ma.
2004 2004 Entry 0 Violet Cavern, a collaboration with sculptor Stephen Hendee and jazz trio The Bad Plus, premieres at BAM.
MMDG debuts at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.
Entry 1 San Francisco Ballet commissions the first American production of Sylvia, a ballet in three acts.
2005 2005 Entry 0 The James & Martha Duffy Performance Space, a 140-seat black-box theater, opens at the Dance Center.
Entry 1 MMDG commemorates its twenty-fifth anniversary with a year-long celebration, beginning with the world premiere of Cargo, the first-ever Boston Symphony Orchestra dance commission.
2006 2006 Entry 0 Morris makes his conducting debut in a performance of Gloria at BAM.
Entry 1 Morris choreographs and directs King Arthur with a world premiere with ENO at the London Coliseum and an American premiere at Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA.
Entry 2 The Mark Morris Dance Center expands on two more floors of the Erickson building to include additional lounge space and two new studios.
Entry 3 Mozart Dances receives its world premiere in New York at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and its European premiere in Vienna as part of the New Crowned Hope Festival.
2007 2007 Entry 0 The Dance Group presents its first series of public shows at the Mark Morris Dance Center with 9 sold out performances that include the world premiere of Italian Concerto, danced by Morris and other Dance Group members.
2007 Entry 1 Morris makes his Metropolitan Opera directorial debut with Orfeo ed Euridice, his third interpretation on the Gluck opera, and collaborates with Maestro James Levine for the production.
2007 Entry 2 Mozart Dances is televised as part of PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center series and broadcast to 1.2 million viewers nationwide during an encore performance at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
2007 Entry 3 The Hard Nut is released on DVD, airs on television for the first time in 15 years and is voted Best Nutcracker by Ovation TV viewers.
2008 2008 Entry 0 Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, co-commissioned by a global conglomerate of presenters, has its world premiere at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.
2008 Entry 1 MMDG collaborates with Brooklyn Independent Television, a division of BRIC ARTS | MEDIA, to produce a series of MMDG television episodes to air in Brooklyn and on the web.

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