No choreographer alive has a higher reputation for musicality than Mark Morris; and that reputation — despite several blunders along the way — has been well earned over more than 30 years of marvelously eclectic creativity. From the Baroque to American modernism, from Monteverdi to Stravinsky, from Stephen Foster to jazz, his dances have brought music to meet dance in ways that have expanded our appreciation of the alchemy that these two arts can achieve together. And he is singularly, courageously, committed to live music in a field where, for economic reasons, recordings are increasingly employed.

The Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center has been a cultural staple for New York City for eleven years, giving audiences the opportunity to witness excellence found in the worldwide field of dance (and at an affodable price, too!). This year's festival opened up with four distinct works, including two NY premieres, one US premiere, and one world premiere by Mark Morris Dance Group, much to the delight of the audience.

The Mark Morris Dance Group returns to Krannert Center's Tryon Festival Theatre on the University of Illinois Urbana campus for performances Friday and Saturday evening.  Illinois Public Media's Brian Moline talked with Morris from his dance studio in New York.

HUNTINGDON, PA.-- The Mark Morris Dance Group, a groundbreaking artistic ensemble noted for technically-dazzling-yet free-flowing choreography and the use of humor and eclectic musical choices in its dances, will perform three acclaimed works, "Words, A Wooden Tree, Grand Duo" at Juniata College at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Sept. 18, in Rosenberger Auditorium in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts. 

Philosophers and physicists can go on debating whether logic and unpredictability can coexist. Mark Morris has already answered the question... Morris' works unspool with airtight musical logic. His choreography follows the music in a rolling, running rhythm of phrasing and sudden punctuation, movements that fall somewhere between common activity and high stylization. It all feels utterly natural. Logical.

With 35 years of impressive and variously poetic dance-making behind him, Mr. Morris appears in no way ready to confine himself to the tried and true. Whatever title he gives his next dance, it is likely to be provocative and may turn another new corner.

Charmaine Patricia Warren for Amsterdam News

One of the two closing companies is the Mark Morris Dance Group and Music Ensemble, and here, one is reminded of Morris’ skilled attention to music in the world premiere of “Words.” This Fall for Dance commission is fun, funny and mature. Do away with the unbecoming costumes but keep the continually changing movement and fastidious dancers.

With few exceptions, the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) has shown up at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, each winter since I moved to the DC area almost a decade ago, and for this I'm extremely grateful. Morris' choreography captivates me in a way that keeps me coming back for more. Not only do I wish to see his work repeatedly, but I envy those performing them. If watching Morris' dances brings me such bliss, then I imagine that actually dancing them must be even more satisfying...His works approach perfection.

Jane Robinson for The Scotsman 

Does Mark Morris create the visual embodiment of our secret wish to move whenever we hear music, the extension of the discrete toe-tap? Is he using our eyes to give us new ears for music? Whatever the trick, it’s close to magic.

Mary Brennan for Herald Scotland 

Time was, the Mark Morris Dance Group was a familiar sight in Scotland: a highlight in several Edinburgh International Festivals, a hot ticket during subsequent UK tours. It's not clear why that fell away. The company's last Scottish showing was in Edinburgh (2009) - this one-night-only in Aberdeen proved a bitter-sweet reminder of how much Morris and his group are missed.

Henning Rübsam for The Dance Enthusiast

Morris has been in the public eye since 1980, and many American critics, funders, and presenters have given him carte blanche since his auspicious outset by anointing him Master Choreographer. This has allowed Morris to continuously work on a scale that hardly any other living choreographer in the contemporary dance field has (and will) experience.

Robert Greskovic for The Wall Street Journal

Last week, a high point of the city’s busy schedule of October dance events was the Mark Morris Dance Group in a world premiere commissioned by Fall for Dance at City Center. Mr. Morris’s “Words,” set to 10 of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words,” capped a quadruple bill shared by three other groups. The 25-minute suite of dances—the only one on its bill presented with live music—dominated the program richly and decisively.

Alastair Macaulay for The New York Times

Mark Morris' Words, a Premiere at Fall for Dance

In the intimate setting of the ICA’s black-box concert hall, Morris and his dancers conjured a world of enchantment.

by Iris Fanger for The Patriot Ledger 

The program of four Boston premieres is a reminder that Morris has lost none of his fervor for live music mixed with dance or his eclectic taste in finding composers to spur his creative choreography. Presented by a company of 17 elegant highly gifted performers, some of them new to local audiences, the evening passes in a luscious mix of joy in dancing and off-beat surprises - a gift to brighten our cold winter.

Leigh Witchell for New York Post

New Yorkers love culture, and we love a bargain even more. Combine them and you get Fall for Dance: five programs, 20 groups and each ticket only 10 bucks. No wonder it always sells out.

by Thea Singer for The Artery

Mark Morris has the uncanny ability to show us the darkness in light, the still point in a maelstrom (of traffic, of relationships), or, as Joan Acocella put it in her 1993 biography of him, "one noble, one ignoble, version of the same truth." He did so again last night, in a concert of four Boston premieres by the Mark Morris Dance Group and Music Ensemble presented in the intimate Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater at the Institute of Contemporary Art.