Mark Morris Dance Group

MCCC presents

Mark Morris Dance Group

February 18

7pm

In partnership with River Radio

Sponsored by WSIL TV

MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP

Founded in New York City in 1980, the internationally-renowned Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG)has been called “the preeminent modern dance organization of our time” (Yo-Yo Ma), its members receiving “highest praise for their technical aplomb, their musicality, and their sheer human authenticity” (Bloomberg News).

Live music and community engagement are vital components of the Dance Group, which has toured with its own musicians, the MMDG Music Ensemble, since 1996.

Through Access/MMDG programming, the Dance Group provides educational opportunities in dance and music to people of all ages and abilities while on tour around the world and at home at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, New York.

MMDG MUSIC ENSEMBLE

The MMDG Music Ensemble, formed in 1996, is integral to the Dance Group. “With the dancers come the musicians…and what a difference it makes” (Classical Voice of North Carolina). The Ensemble’s repertory ranges from 17th century works by John Wilson and Henry Purcell to more recent scores by Lou Harrison and Henry Cowell. The musicians also participate in Access/MMDG – the Dance Group’s educational and community programming at home and on tour.

“The Mark Morris Dance Group has long been ahead of all other dance companies in the flow and detail of its dancers’ response to music. And their qualities of focus, stillness, ease are ones that most actors would envy.“ – Financial Times (U.K.)

“No choreographer alive has a higher reputation for musicality than Mark Morris; and that reputation… has been well earned over more than 30 years of marvelously eclectic creativity.” – The New York Times

“The skill of the great artist – whether a Michelangelo, a Mozart, a Mark Morris – is to fashion simplicity from complexity. The dances simply feel right, to the eye, intellect and nervous system.” – The Washington Post

“Everything they do is human and marvelous.” – The Independent

“Music…is not simply a starting point for Mr. Morris’s choreography, and never simply an accompaniment. Rather, it is the principal means by which he achieves structural coherence and depth of feeling.”

The Wall Street Journal
“[Morris] is one of those handful-in-a-century creative spirits – think Picasso or Balanchine – who manage to hold our attention while challenging all expectations.” – The Times-Picayune

“This sense of purpose comes through in all the dancing. Not a movement is wasted, nor is anything thrown away. The energy and focus is all absorbed into the intention of each step rather than projected outward as a form of ego or “personality.” It’s one of the most striking characteristics of the Mark Morris Dance Group.”

DanceTabs
“He’s an innovator and a traditionalist, a satirist and a romantic, and one can never tell in advance what side of him will be presented in any given work or at any given moment in a work.” – The New Yorker

“Seattle-born barefoot luminary is arguably the most musically minded, formally punctilious contemporary choreographer there has ever been.” – The Telegraph

“It remains more true than ever that there is no other dance company so at one with its choreography and with its music. Dancers; musicians; actors – they are all three at the same time, and they make moment upon moment feel one image of truth after another.” – Financial Times (U.K.)

“Mark Morris is a genius. His best dances…tug at us powerfully. He can align steps and music in a way that transports.“ – HuffPost

“[Morris’] choreography presents something profound and of great value: a fresh sense that human expression, in the human body, can soar beyond all limits.” – Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the U.S.