Cal Performances | Dance | Mark Morris Dance Group, Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare

Patron Information | Artists links

West Coast Premiere!
Mark Morris Dance Group
Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare
Berkeley Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Asbury, conductor

Love lives! Cal Performances' ongoing relationship with Mark Morris—creator of such landmark works as Mozart Dances and The Hard Nut—deepens and expands as the acclaimed choreographer presents a fresh look at Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers. By the time Prokofiev's glittering ballet Romeo and Juliet premiered at Leningrad's Kirov Theatre in 1940, it was unrecognizable to the composer. Years of bureaucratic tampering had forced him to rewrite the ending, insert solo dances, and thicken the orchestrations. Now after nearly 70 years, comes a historic double accomplishment: the "newly original" Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, featuring a reconstructed score by Princeton University musicologist Simon Morrison and choreography by Morris. As Prokofiev originally intended, this stunning new work features a radically different ending, all filtered through the prism of Morris' remarkable artistic vision.

Sergey Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, restored by Simon Morrison, is performed by exclusive agreement with the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow.

A Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College/Mark Morris Dance Group production in association with Cal Performances, Berkeley; barbicanbite08, London; Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Millennium Park, Chicago; Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and Virginia Arts Festival.

Made possible, in part, by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts and by the Centennial Campaign's Creative Venture Fund through a gift from The Bernard Osher Foundation

Program Notes
Program notes are available approximately one week before the performance.

Video Clips
( QuickTime Player)

Mark Morris in Conversation with Robert Cole
Learn more about the inner workings of the long and fruitful relationship between Mark Morris Dance Group and Cal Performances with a converation between Mark Morris and Robert Cole, Director of Cal Performances (recorded August 31, 2007).

QuickTime Format (Get free player)

Broadband version: Part 1
Broadband version: Part 2
Broadband version: Part 3
Dial-up version: Part 1
Dial-up version: Part 2
Dial-up version: Part 3

RealVideo Format (Get free player)

Standard version

Education/Community Events
Key Notes: Music for the Stage
Fri, Sep 26, 5-6:30 pm
Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine
Robert Cole and Professor Richard Taruskin discuss Morris' new work based on Prokofiev's original music and the original story concept by Soviet dramatist Sergei Radlov.

Donor Event
Season Opening Celebration with the Mark Morris Dance Group
Thu, Sep 25, 2008
Location TBD
(Donors of $600+ by invitation only)
Raise a glass to the start of another amazing Cal Performances season, Robert Cole's final as Director, and the West Coast premiere of Mark Morris's highly anticipated new Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare. There's much to celebrate and we invite you to toast with Director Cole, Mark Morris, and his remarkable dancers.