Mark Morris Dance Group to Launch 45th Anniversary Season with Two Weeks at The Joyce This Summer

This summer, the Mark Morris Dance Group will return to The Joyce Theater to usher in a milestone: the company’s 45th anniversary season. From July 15–26, 2025, the company will present two distinctive programs that celebrate Mark Morris’s incomparable body of work showcasing choreography that has shaped the course of contemporary dance through musical connection, emotional honesty, and unmatched storytelling.

The two-week engagement includes two world premieres that continue Morris’s lifelong commitment to music as a living, breathing partner to dance. Set in one of New York City’s most intimate and beloved dance venues, these programs offer audiences the rare chance to experience the past and present of Morris’s choreography in one sweeping arc.
 
“I’ve had a company for 45 years. We’re still making new work, still dancing, still putting music first,” says Mark Morris, Artistic Director and choreographer. “The Joyce Theater is a great place to start this milestone season—intimate, direct, and built for what we do.”

Program A, July 15–19, offers the world premiere of You’ve Got To Be Modernistic, set to seven rarely heard compositions by Harlem stride piano legend James P. Johnson. The score, transcribed and arranged by jazz pianist Ethan Iverson, will be performed live each night by Iverson himself. The program continues with The Muir (2010), a lyrical and pastoral work set to Scottish and English folk songs, followed by Mosaic and United (1993), an elegant and enigmatic quintet praised for its balance of form and feeling. Rounding out the evening is Silhouettes (1999), a duet of neoclassical wit and delicate intricacy set to music by Richard Cumming.
 
Program B, running July 22–26, centers on the world premiere of Northwest, a meditative new work set to compositions by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. Drawing inspiration from the traditional songs and rhythms of the Athabascan and Yup’ik peoples of Alaska, this new work continues MMDG’s commitment to presenting music beyond the dominant Western canon and honoring the diverse cultural roots of movement traditions. Also on the program is Ten Suggestions (1981), one of Morris’s earliest works—an playful and theatrical solo; The Argument (1999), an emotionally charged suite of breakups and reconciliations for three couples set to the music of Robert Schumann; and Going Away Party (1990), a high-spirited, honky-tonk dance inspired by country-western social gatherings.

As always, every performance features live music—a core tenet of Morris’s artistic vision— brought to life by MMDG Music Director Colin Fowler and members of the renowned MMDG Music Ensemble. Together, the dancers and musicians deliver the kind of full-bodied, full-hearted experience that has made Mark Morris Dance Group a cultural mainstay for 45 years.