Arts & Ideas Presents Mark Morris' PEPPERLAND

The 2018 International Festival of Arts & Ideas will welcome back Mark Morris Dance Group for the New England premiere of Pepperland for two performances, June 21 and 22 at 8PM, at the Shubert Theater (247 College Street).

The Beatles' groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has turned 50. To salute this milestone in musical history, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas partnered with arts organizations from around the world to commission the Mark Morris Dance Group's creation of Pepperland. A huge hit at its debut in Liverpool, Morris' choreography combines with fresh arrangements of Beatles songs and new Pepper-inspired pieces composed by Ethan Iverson to create "A brilliant homage to one of the great rock albums" (The Telegraph).

"This great album set a radical new direction for popular music and thought. I was just a child," says choreographer Mark Morris. "Fifty years later, with contemporary eyes and ears, we are presenting a comment and a rethinking of this profound cultural artifact with all of the imagination, surprise, humor, and bizarrity intact."

Mark Morris's evening-length work Pepperland is co-commissioned by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Its presentation this summer marks the third time the Festival presents the company's work, following Dido and Aeneas (2009) and Acis and Galatea (2015).

"We could not be more excited to bring Mark Morris and the Mark Morris Dance Group back to New Haven for the third time, celebrating an album that changed music by a dance company that has changed dance. The Festival is proud to be a commissioning partner," said Chad Herzog, on behalf of his International Festival Co-Directors Liz Fisher and Tom Griggs. "Pepperland promises to bridge the many generations and cultures of Festival audiences in our shared languages of dance and rock and roll."

Tickets for Pepperland are available now online at artidea.org/pepperland. Tickets are $125 (premium plus), $85 (premium), $45 (regular), $20 (value). In addition, a limited number of $300 tickets are available for the opening performance and gala reception on Thursday, June 21.

Mark Morris (Choreographer) has been hailed as the "the most successful and influential choreographer alive, and indisputably the most musical" (The New York Times). In addition to creating over 150 works for the Mark Morris Dance Group, he conducts orchestras, directs opera, and choreographs for ballet companies worldwide. Morris' work is acclaimed for its ingenuity, musicality, wit, and humanity. Named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991, he has received eleven honorary doctorates to date, and a multitude of awards, including the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, the Benjamin Franklin Laureate Prize for Creativity, the Cal Performances Award of Distinction in the Performing Arts, the Orchestra of St. Luke's Gift of Music Award, and the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award. In 2015, Morris was inducted to the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Ethan Iverson (Composer), former MMDG Music Director, is one-third of The Bad Plus (TBP), a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP "...Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60's jazz and indie rock." TBP has performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Stravinky's The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction. In addition to TBP, Iverson participates in the critically-acclaimed Billy Hart quartet with Mark Turner and Ben Street and occasionally performs with an elder statesman like Albert "Tootie" Heath or Ron Carter. For a decade Iverson's blog Do the Math has been a repository of musician-to-musician interviews and analysis, which is surely one reason Time Out New York selected Iverson as one of 25 essential New York jazz icons: "Perhaps NYC's most thoughtful and passionate student of jazz tradition-the most admirable sort of artist-scholar." In 2017 Iverson is co-curating a major centennial celebration of Thelonious Monk at Duke University and in 2018 will be premiering an original piano concerto with the American Composers Orchestra.

Formed in 1980, Morris' internationally-renowned Mark Morris Dance Group has received "highest praise for their technical aplomb, their musicality, and their sheer human authenticity" (Bloomberg News). Live music and community engagement are vital components of MMDG. It has toured with its own musicians, the MMDG Music Ensemble, since 1996, and regularly collaborates with orchestras and opera companies around the world. MMDG's film and television projects include Dido and Aeneas, The Hard Nut, Falling Down Stairs, the U.K.'s South Bank Show, and Live from Lincoln Center. In 2015 Morris' signature work L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato premiered on PBS' Great Performances.

Pepperland is produced by Mark Morris Dance Group in association with American Dance Festival, Durham, North Carolina; BAM, Brooklyn, New York; Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity with the Sony Centre, Toronto, Canada; Cal Performances, UC Berkeley, California; The City of Liverpool, England, U.K.; Dance Consortium UK; Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; International Festival of Arts & Ideas, New Haven, Connecticut; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.; Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; La Jolla Music Society, La Jolla, California; Meyer Sound, Berkeley, California; Seattle Theatre Group, Seattle, Washington; Segerstrom Center for The Arts, Costa Mesa, California; UCSB Arts & Lectures, Santa Barbara, California; White Bird, Portland, Oregon.

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is a year-round organization that culminates with an annual celebration of performing arts, lectures, and conversations each June in New Haven, Connecticut. The Festival convenes leading artists, thought leaders, and innovators from around the world for 15 days of dynamic public programs to engage, entertain, and inspire a diversity of communities. More than 80% of Festival programs are free to the public, including events that feature some of the most influential jazz, classical, dance, and theater artists of our time.

The Festival takes place in venues and open spaces in downtown New Haven, in the heart of the northeast corridor, two and a half hours south of Boston and ninety minutes north of New York City.

The Festival's programs have an impact throughout the year and include additional performances, educational opportunities, and the annual Visionary Leadership Award. The Festival was established in 1996, by Anne Calabresi, Jean M. Handley, and Roslyn Meyer. They envisioned an annual celebration in New Haven-a city steeped in a rich array of cultural and educational traditions-distinguished from other arts festivals by its fusion of the arts with events centered on sharing ideas.

The Festival is presented with major support from KeyBank, Comcast/NBC Connecticut, Yale University, The City of New Haven, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Connecticut Office of the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts

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