Mark Morris, man of many arts, is artist in residence for Annenberg's 2017-2018 season

Eminent choreographer, director, dancer, musician, and critic Mark Morris will be the first artist in residence at the Annenberg Center. As part of the center's 2017-2018 season, announced on Thursday, he'll be at the Center for a week in February 2018 with his dance group performing two dance concerts — plus, true to Morris' wide-ranging artistic interests, lots of other activity.

It will be the first time in 14 years the distinguished multidisciplinary New York-based artist has been to Philadelphia. His dance group last performed at the Zellerbach at Annenberg in 1997.

"It's kind of insane that it's been that long," said Christopher Gruits, the new artistic director of the center. Gruits announced the news in late April. "It's not as if New York is that far away."

The Mark Morris Dance Group, which Morris founded in 1980, will perform two concerts on Feb. 9-10. "They will be performing dance pieces to music by American composers including George Gershwin, Henry Cowell, and Lou Harrison," Gruits said. "There will be a couple of Philadelphia premieres among those works."

And much more. Morris will also curate a film series of Hollywood musicals, to be shown throughout the month of February. His choices indicate a deep, knowing acquaintance with the genre and a desire to bring his audiences lesser-known gems. Among the films will be the 1933 delight Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!, the 1933 hobo musical starring Al Jolson, Harry Langdon, and Frank Morgan. Also among the films are Tonight We Sing, a 1953 musical biopic of impresario Sol Hurok; and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, a 1953 musical fantasy that was the only film ever written by Ted Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Exact titles and running dates are not yet set.

Gruits also mentioned that the Mark Morris Dance Group will bring his program titled Dance for PD, centered on Parkinson's Disease, to town, partnering with Penn Medicine with programs for patients. Here is a video of the dance company encouraging Parkinson's patients to move and dance:

"We're very interested," Gruits said, "in artists who cross into fields such as science and medicine, and other fields the university is known for.

Just before going in to a reception at Annenberg on Thursday, Morris, now 60, reflected on the many hats he wears. He began with the fact that he has not performed as a dancer for years. "I'm a choreographer and a director," he said. "I direct opera, and sometimes I conduct, well enough so people want me to do it more. I'm a teacher, an expert on a lot of things … I'm also a cook; I've cooked for my company for years. Let's say I'm as much a consumer of culture as an offerer of culture. I take as much as I give."

Morris and his dance group enjoyed steadily increasing international renown through the 1980s. As a dancer, he became known for a combination of grace and innovation in his dancing. In 1990, he and Mikhail Baryshnikov established the White Oak Project, a dance-development outfit on an estate near the Florida-Georgia border. As both a dancer and a choreographer, Morris distinguished himself with original, imaginative rethinkings of the possibilities of dance. He went on to a distinguished career as a choreographer in various settings, including works such as Gloria (1981), Championship Wrestling (1985), The Hard Nut (1991), a Nutcracker set in the 1970s; and a dance version of the Virgil Thomson–Gertrude Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts (2001).

"I've been a fan of Mark's for a very long time," said Gruits, in commenting on the residency, "and he was one of the first artists I looked for."