Mark Morris's Quotes

I'm really drawn to West Coast composers and I think it has a little something to do with looking across the Pacific instead of looking across the Atlantic.

No dance has ever turned out the way I thought it would, because I trust enough that I can start something with some ideas and then it takes itself somewhere.

Perhaps... I mean there are people who defend that it as an art. I don't. I like it but it's not an art form as far as I'm concerned, and yet it's a similar thing, once you can't land those jumps, you're disqualified - that precludes it from ever becoming a serious art form.

Sure, I could give advice; I could, say, travel the world, listen to music. But all I can really say is do something you want to do and do it well. And if you want to be a choreographer, then you have to make dances.

That piece has been choreographed so badly so many times. I'm loathe to do it but I may eventually because it is one of the seminal art works of the twentieth century.

Usually that's going into biology in a certain way. There's certain strengths and weaknesses to both of the sexes. And I'm not against employing those nor am I against denying those, what I am looking for is a very large array of options.

We're all in the same room, so I want people to be involved with one another, but again you can't decide exactly to what extent that operates. It varies all the time and it depends on the show, it depends on the audience, it depends on everything.

Well let's see; I'm not obsessed with... I like Walt Disney except that you know, except for the horrible fascism. I love the art of it. I like a lot of things I don't agree with and that's one of them.

As I have said before, dancing is for anyone, but not for everyone.

Every child dances, and then you learn not to.

Disney is thrilling and informative and important and beautiful and suspect. Butts was a detail I observed later and definitely ties in. I suppose I was programmed, yeah.

A recording of a performance is a recording of a performance. It's not the performance.

Audiences don't want to see the kind of self-indulgent, boring dance that is so prevalent today.

'Elitist' doesn't need to mean wealthy and conservative; it can also mean specialised and rarefied, and that's no bad thing.

I can read music, but I have no technique, and singing was never an option even though I sang a lot growing up.

I didn't go to a conservatoire, and I have certain low opinions of certain aspects of the conservatory experience.

I have a beautiful, big bathtub.

I love making up titles.

I teach class. I study music. I rehearse. I coach people. That's it. I'm doing exactly what I want.

I'm very tough.

If nobody comes to your shows, then it's modern dance. If everybody comes to your shows and no one likes it, is that ballet? I don't know.

It never occurred to me that I'd have a dance company.

Some people only work to recorded music because it's so reliable and exactly the same every time, which is exactly why I don't.