What a joyous fun romp through our beloved Beatle Sgt. Pepper and beyond. The costumes, the choreography, the amazing dancers, all a wonderful experience. Mark Moriis has done it again, just genius.
About Pepperland:
Pepperland is a Mark Morris Dance Group production 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; Celebrity Series of Boston, Massachusetts; 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; and White Bird, Portland, Oregon.
Pepperland is supported in part by Friends of MMDG, the Howard Gilman Foundation, PARC Foundation, and New Music USA. Music commissioned by the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation. The premiere engagement was supported by funding from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Howard Gilman Foundation.
“Pepperland” is choreographer Mark Morris’ unique tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a joyous romp through the Beatles’ beloved, groundbreaking concept album – a playful and often poignant production bursting with energy and buoyant creativity, brightly colored costumes, and spectacular ensemble numbers.
Created at the request of the City of Liverpool to kick off its Sgt. Pepper at 50 Festival in May 2017, the evening-length work features an original score by composer Ethan Iverson interspersing arrangements of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “With a Little Help From My Friends”, “A Day in the Life”, “When I’m Sixty-Four”, “Within You Without You”, and “Penny Lane” with six original Pepper-inspired pieces intended especially for Mark Morris’ profound understanding of classical forms: Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio, and the blues.
An unprecedented chamber music ensemble of voice, theremin, soprano sax, trombone, two keyboards, and percussion teases out and elaborates on “Sgt. Pepper’s” non-rock and roll influences. This colorful new piece resounds with the ingenuity, musicality, wit, and humanity for which the company is known.
The work also playfully evokes multiple aspects of the era, with colorful, mod-inspired costumes by Elizabeth Kurtzman, scenic design by Johan Henckens, and lighting design by Nick Kolin.
Mark Morris said, “The music for ‘Pepperland’, arranged and extrapolating from tracks on The Beatles’, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ is important to me because of the enormous impact the album caused in popular culture at large. ‘Beatlemania’ in the UK and particularly in the US was a pivotal event in the turbulent social/political semi-revolution of the late 1960s.”
He continued, “As a very young person, I was dazzled and confused by the music. I loved it and I loved The Beatles. Then, over the years, I lost touch and lost interest partly because of overexposure. When I was approached to participate in the commemorative project in Liverpool, I re-examined the recording and found so much of interest in it that I eagerly took on the big project of turning these very familiar songs into an evening length music and dance show. ‘Pepperland’ is the exciting result.”
Ethan Iverson said, “The ‘Pepperland’ score is a suite of chamber music performed by some of New York City’s finest iconoclasts. Half the piece is arrangements of the songs we all know, half ise brand new danceable pieces responding to the strong undercurrent of classical music present on the original album.”
Renowned choreographer Mark Morris continued to explore the relationship between movement and music with “Pepperland,” which pays homage to The Beatles’ 1967 trailblazing album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Often hailed as the first-ever “art rock” album, the Beatles’ groundbreaking work pushed the recording-studio technology of the late 1960s to the limit and is widely regarded as the best rock n’ roll album in history.
Music: Original songs by The Beatles, arrangement by Ethan Iverson, Original compositions by Ethan Iverson, Choreography: Mark Morris, Set Design: Johan Henckens, Costume Design: Elizabeth Kurtzman, and Lighting Design: Nick Kolin.
Music: 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, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Band: Clinton Curtis, vocals; Sam Newsome, soprano saxophone; Jacob Garchik, trombone; Rob Schwimmer, theremin; Ethan Iverson, piano; Chris McCarthy, keyboard; and Vinnie Sperrazza, percussion.
Mica Bernas, Karlie Budge, Zack Gonder, Kyle Halford, Colin Heininger, Sarah Hillmon, Courtney Lopes, Dallas McMurray, Alex Meeth, Sloan Pearson, Brandon Randolph, Robert Rubama, Christina Sahaida, Joslin Vezeau, Noah Vinson
Original music by The Beatles. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission from Sony Music Publishing.
“A Day In The Life”, “Penny Lane”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “When I’m Sixty Four”, “With A Little Help From My Friends” Courtesy of MPL Communications, Inc. (ASCAP)
Mark Swed said in the Los Angeles Times, “… “Pepperland” is “Sgt. Pepper” at 50, looking back with irresistible fondness — what fun it all was — but also with wisdom, knowing that it was real and was something to get hung about. Every single move in the dance is, while being utterly musical, entirely unexpected.”
Sarah L. Kaufman said in the Washington Post, “It is first and foremost, an exuberant celebration of the ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album. It rolls at you with wave upon wave of creative wonders and sheer delight and it is utterly mood-improving. It could possibly change the way you look at the world. The overarching sense is that you’re hearing and viewing this well-known album through a kaleidoscope. Chances are you will hate to see it end.”
Judith Mackrell said in The Guardian, “Visually, the work is on a cusp between Carnaby Street and Woodstock. Its 15 dancers are dressed in neon-bright suits and miniskirts, and its movement is predicated on a neat, strutting language of disco and jive … Pepperland feels like a gorgeously entertaining and witty homage to its source. It also has just the right amount of sentiment. When Morris allows his dancers to stand and sing quietly along with ‘A Day in the Life,’ he shifts the mood to one of pure, tearful nostalgia. Suddenly we’re transported back to that moment, 50 year ago.”
Rachael Goldberg in Broadway World said, “a bright, vivid performance that’s just edging into trippy … the synchronized group dances are only outdone by the staggered dances, which show off the company members’ tremendous skill. The fact that they make complicated choreography look so simple and effortless is a testament to their abilities, as the entire performance is demandingly fast and complex. And yet, it’s impossible to doubt that each member is clearly having the time of their lives on that stage. a crowd-pleasing evening of dance and color.”
About Mark Morris:
Mark Morris, praised as “the most successful and influential choreographer alive, and indisputably the most musical” (The New York Times), 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, Laura Dean, 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. From 1988 to 1991, he was Director of Dance at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the national opera house of Belgium. In 1990, he founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris is also an acclaimed ballet choreographer, with twenty-two works commissioned by ballet 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). In 2013, he served as Music Director for the Ojai Music Festival. Morris also works extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera, and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, among others.
He was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991 and has received eleven honorary doctorates to date. He has taught at the University of Washington, Princeton University, and Tanglewood Music Center.
He is the subject of a biography, Mark Morris, by Joan Acocella (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), and Marlowe & Company published a volume of photographs and critical essays entitled Mark Morris’ L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration. Mark Morris: Musician-Choreographer, by musicologist Stephanie Jordan, was released in 2015. Morris’s memoir, Out Loud, co-written with Wesley Stace, was published in paperback by Penguin Press in October 2021.
A Doris Duke Artist, Morris is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and has served as an Advisory Board Member for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.He has received 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 International Society for the Performing Arts’ Distinguished Artist Award, 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 into the Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Morris opened the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, New York, in 2001 to provide a home for his company, subsidized rental space for local artists, community education programs for children and seniors, and a school offering dance classes to students of all ages and levels of experience with and without disabilities.
About Ethan Iverson:
Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson (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.” During his 17-year tenure, TBP 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 Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction.
Since leaving TBP, Iverson has kept busy. In 2017, he co-curated a major centennial celebration of Thelonious Monk at Duke University and premiered the evening-length Pepperland with the Mark Morris Dance Group. In 2018, he premiered an original piano concerto with the American Composers Orchestra and released a duo album of new compositions with Mark Turner on ECM. In 2019, he released Common Practice with Tom Harrell on ECM, standards tracked live at the Village Vanguard. In 2021, he released the big band work Bud Powell in the 21st Century and was featured on the March cover of DownBeat.
In 2022, he released Every Note is True on Blue Note records, an album of original music with Larry Grenadier and Jack DeJohnette. Iverson has also been in the critically-acclaimed Billy Hart quartet for well over a decade and occasionally performs with elder statesmen like Albert “Tootie” Heath or Ron Carter or collaborates with noted classical musicians like Miranda Cuckson and Mark Padmore.
For almost 20 years, Iverson’s website Do the Math has been a repository of musician-to-musician interviews and analysis. 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.” Iverson has also published articles about music in The New Yorker, NPR, The Nation, and JazzTimes.
About the Mark Morris Dance Group and MMDG Music Ensemble:
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. 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. MMDG also appears regularly in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Fairfax. 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 collabo- rates 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 17th and 18th 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.
About Wallis Center for the Performing Arts:
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (The Wallis) was lauded by Culture Vulture: “If you love expecting the unexpected in the performing arts, you have to love The Wallis.” Broadway legend Patti LuPone, who was The Wallis’ 2015/2016 Season Artistic Advisor, described the venue as “one of the best in the country, allowing for an unparalleled intimacy between [the artist] and the audience.”
Since its doors opened in 2013, The Wallis, located in the heart of Beverly Hills, CA, is a dynamic cultural hub and community resource where local, national, and international performers share their artistry with ever-expanding audiences. Distinguished by eclectic programming that mirrors the diverse landscape of Los Angeles and its location in the entertainment capital of the world, The Wallis has produced and presented nearly 500 theater, dance, music, film, cabaret, comedy, performance arts, and family entertainment programs, boasting nominations for 79 Ovation Awards and nine L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards, as well as six architectural awards.
The breathtaking 70,000-square-foot facility, celebrating the classic and the modern, was named after philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, who’s original $25-million-dollar donation was instrumental in transforming the beloved former 1934 Beverly Hills Post Office (on the National Register of Historic Places) into an arts complex. Designed by acclaimed architect Zoltan E. Pali (SPF: architects), the restored building features one of two sets of eight towering original WPA frescos, these by Charles Kassler, remaining in the entire California Federal Building system. The Wallis’ lobby, now known as Jim and Eleanor Randall Grand Hall, serves as the theater’s dramatic yet welcoming entryway to the contemporary 500-seat, state-of-the-art Bram Goldsmith Theater; the 150-seat Lovelace Studio Theater; an inviting open-air plaza for family, community and other performances; and GRoW @ The Wallis: A Space for Arts Education, where learning opportunities for all ages and backgrounds abound. Together, these elements embrace both the region’s history and its future, creating a performing arts destination for Los Angeles area visitors and residents alike.
Daphna Nazarian is Chair of The Wallis’ Board of Directors and Robert van Leer is its Executive Director and CEO.
Wallis Annenberg For The Performing Arts Center
9390 N Santa Monica Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
* Note Some Content Was Taken From A Press Release, and Off Of Their Website.
