Mark Morris on the way to Glory.
“Even when this long-established choreographer was an enfant terrible more than four decades ago, one way he rebelled was by making dances on unfashionable themes like the struggle for spiritual grace (“Gloria”) and the suffering of Mother Mary (“Stabat Mater”).
He’s still at it. Last weekend, just before Holy Week, the Mark Morris Dance Group presented the New York premiere of his “Via Dolorosa,” which is about the Stations of the Cross, the Good Friday path of Jesus from his condemnation through his crucifixion and burial. Like many of Morris’s best pieces, especially the religious ones, it is a work that seeks truth in plainness and uses simple means to devastating effect.”
At the start of each of the 14 sections, a voice announces the station: Station 1, Jesus is condemned to death; Station 9, Jesus is nailed to the cross. Just as in Morris’s “Socrates” (2010), in which many dancers portray the philosopher, many dancers represent Jesus in “Via Dolorosa.” Many take up the cross, many fall three times. As Jesus walks down a line of people (and someone jumps up to get a better look), dancers take turns as him in a circular pattern.”
The multiplication and circularity push the work from representation toward the abstract, from ritual repetition into musical form, but they also widen the implications. They open a space for all of us to imagine ourselves suffering as Christ did.”
— Excerpted from The New York Times, April 1, 2026.
Here is a brief excerpt from its premier in California:
