PRESS RELEASE: The legendary Mark Morris Dance Group returns to Santa Fe to perform a tribute to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Santa Fe, NM, January 6, 2022 – Created as a tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pepperland is a modern dance masterpiece by Mark Morris, “the most successful and influential choreographer alive” (New York Times). One of Morris’ most iconic original works, the show features six songs from Sgt. Pepper and four Pepper-inspired original compositions arranged and composed by Ethan Iverson— Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio, and The Blues. Dancers performing Morris’ choreography are accompanied live by a chamber ensemble of voice, soprano saxophone, two keyboards, theremin, and percussion.

Presented through the generosity of Carolyn and Preston Reed and Heritage Hotels and Resorts
22–23 Season Sponsors: Ann Murphy Daily and William W. Daily; Leah Gordon

Mark Morris Dance Group: Pepperland  
Tuesday, February 7 | 7:30 pm
Lensic Performing Arts Center
211 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501
$40–$125

Save up to 50% off your ticket order with student and family discounts
$20 Rush tickets available the day of the performance for patrons under 30
To purchase tickets, visit PerformanceSantaFe.org or call (505) 984 8759

Mark Morris Dance Group: Pepperland. A modern dance retrospective on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Presented by Performance Santa Fe at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Tuesday, February 7, 7:30 pm. Tickets: $40–$125. (505) 984 8759. PerformanceSantaFe.org.

Pepperland

Music: Original songs by The Beatles, arr. by Ethan Iverson^*
Original compositions by Ethan Iverson^‡
Choreography: Mark Morris
Set Design: Johan Henckens
Costume Design: Elizabeth Kurtzman
Lighting Design: Nick Kolin

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band^*
Magna Carta^‡
With a Little Help from My Friends^*
Adagio^‡
When I’m Sixty-Four^*
Allegro^‡
Within You Without You^*
Scherzo^‡
Wilbur Scoville^‡
Penny Lane^*
A Day in the Life^*
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band^*

Dancer casting TBA

About Mark Morris Dance Group

Artistic Director
Mark Morris

Executive Director
Nancy Umanoff

Dancers

*apprentice
^†understudy

MMDG Music Ensemble

Clinton Curtis, vocals
Sam Newsome, soprano saxophone
Jacob Garchik, trombone
Rob Schwimmer, theremin
Ethan Iverson, piano
Colin Fowler, keyboard
Vinnie Sperrazza, percussion

Official Sponsor: Bloomberg Philanthropies

The Mark Morris Dance Group was formed in 1980 and gave its first performance that year in New York City. The company’s touring schedule steadily expanded to include cities in the United States and around the world, and in 1986 it made its first national television program for the PBS series Dance in America. In 1988, MMDG was invited to become the national dance company of Belgium and spent three years in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. The Dance Group returned to the United States in 1991 as one of the world’s leading dance companies. Now based in Brooklyn, New York, MMDG maintains strong ties to presenters in several cities around the world, most notably to its West Coast home, Cal Performances in Berkeley, California, and its Midwest home, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In New York, the company has performed at New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, regularly performs at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’s Mostly Mozart and White Light Festivals, and collaborates yearly with BAM on performances and master classes. From the company’s many London seasons, it has received two Laurence Olivier Awards and a Critics’ Circle Dance Award for Best Foreign Dance Company. Reflecting Morris’s commitment to live music, the Dance Group has featured live musicians in every performance since the formation of the MMDG Music Ensemble in 1996. MMDG regularly collaborates with renowned musicians, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and jazz trio The Bad Plus, as well as leading orchestras and opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, and the London Symphony Orchestra. MMDG frequently works with distinguished artists and designers, including painters Robert Bordo and the late Howard Hodgkin, set designers Adrianne Lobel and Allen Moyer, costume designers Martin Pakledinaz and Isaac Mizrahi, and many others. MMDG’s film and television projects include Dido and Aeneas, The Hard Nut, Falling Down Stairs, two documentaries for the U.K.’s South Bank Show, and PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center. In 2015, Morris’s signature work L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato had its national television premiere on PBS’s Great Performances. While on tour the Dance Group partners with local cultural institutions and community organizations to present arts and humanities-based activities for people of all ages and abilities.

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 17^th and 18^th century works by John Wilson and Henry Purcell to more recent scores by Ethan Iverson, Lou Harrison, and Henry Cowell. The musicians also participate in the Dance Group’s educational and community programming at home and on tour. The Music Ensemble is led by Colin Fowler, who began to collaborate with MMDG in 2005 during the creation of Mozart Dances.

Mark Morris was born on August 29, 1956, in Seattle, Washington, where he studied with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. In the early years of his career, he performed with the companies of Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Eliot Feld, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble. He formed the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) in 1980 and has since created over 150 works for the company. Much in demand as a ballet choreographer, Morris has created 22 ballets since 1986 and his work has been performed by companies worldwide. Noted for his musicality, Morris has been described as “undeviating in his devotion to music” (The New Yorker). He began conducting performances for MMDG in 2006 and has since conducted at Tanglewood Music Center, Lincoln Center, and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). He also works extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions numerous leading opera companies. He was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991 and has received eleven honorary doctorates to date. Morris has received the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, the International Society for the Performing Arts’ Distinguished Artist Award, and the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award, among other prizes and accolades. Morris opened the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, New York, in 2001 to provide a home for his company as well as subsidized rental space for local artists, community education programs, and a school offering dance classes to students of all ages. Morris’s memoir, Out Loud, co-written with Wesley Stace, was published in paperback by Penguin Press in October 2021.

Ethan Iverson (composer, arranger, piano) first came to international prominence as a founding member of The Bad Plus, 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.” Since leaving TBP, Iverson has kept busy. Highlights of Iverson’s recent activity includes premiering an original piano concerto with the American Composers Orchestra (2018), releasing the big band work Bud Powell in the 21^st Century (2021), and releasing Every Note is True on Blue Note records, an album of original music with Larry Grenadier and Jack DeJohnette (2022). 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.”

About Performance Santa Fe

Performance Santa Fe has been bringing the very best of music, dance, and theater to iconic Santa Fe locations since 1937. Now in its 86th season, the organization upholds excellence in the performing arts and brings joy and enrichment to the community. Alongside its extensive performance season, the organization runs three dynamic, exciting, and inclusive educational programs for students in the community— Arts for Life, the Masterclass Series, and the Field Trip Series. PSF’s 2022-2023 season brings 27 performances to Santa Fe and celebrates the diverse possibilities of artistic expression. Learn more at PerformanceSantaFe.org. Performance Santa Fe is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.

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