Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
MA Performing Arts Administration, 2012
Director of Dance, Interlochen Center for the Arts
Joseph Morrissey is the Director of Dance at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, USA. He priorly served as Director of Artistic Planning and Touring for The Hong Kong Ballet, where he signed the company global touring representation with IMG Artists – a partnership that has been maintained since. Morrissey has danced with the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich, Germany; Charleston Ballet Theatre and Boston Ballet II. Performed repertoire includes the late nineteenth century classical ballets by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov along with works by choreographers including George Balanchine, John Cranko, Mikhail Fokine, Terrence Kohler, Jiri Kylian, Graeme Murphy and John Neumeier.
Morrissey has twice been invited to choreograph for the Stuttgart Ballet’s Noverre Society, and was later selected to choreograph for the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of The New York City Ballet where he created work for students at the School of American Ballet together with an original score commissioned for students at The Juilliard School. Morrissey has choreographed for the Inside/Out series at The School of Ballet at Jacob’s Pillow, a program of which he is a two-time alumnus, and was invited to choreograph for Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s 2017 ChoreoPlan. Morrissey’s work has also been shown at the 2015 Beijing International Ballet Competition and in Italy at the Festival Ballet d’Adriactico and Roberto Bolle and Stars from American Ballet Theatre. At Interlochen, Morrissey has staged and produced full length versions of The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake all in cooperation with the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra, featuring newly designed production elements including the acquisition of the costumes from the famed “glasnost” Soviet/American cooperative production of Swan Lake with the Boston Ballet. Morrissey has taken the Interlochen Arts Academy Ballet on tours to theaters across Michigan, including the newly built Great Lakes Center for the Performing Arts in Bay Harbor along with featuring his students in works at Carnegie Hall, The Joyce Theatre and David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. Additionally, Morrissey has programmed works at Interlochen including Paul Taylor’s Company B, Anthony Tudor’s Little Improvisations, Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, Jose Limon’s A Choreographic Offering, Mark Morris’ Polka, Merce Cunningham’s Changing Steps, Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring Suite, and excerpts from George Balanchine’s ballets Serenade and The Four Temperaments. In March, 2021 the Center performed choreographer Lucinda Childs’ Concerto, becoming the first high school being granted a license to perform this iconic contemporary dance piece.
Morrissey was a selected participant in the 2015 Dance/USA Institute for Leadership Training, a platform for emerging and notable leaders in the dance field sponsored by the American Express and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations, where he was under the mentorship of Valerie Wilder, former Executive Director of the Australian Ballet, Boston Ballet and National Ballet of Canada. Holding a Master of Arts in Performing Arts Administration from New York University, Morrissey previously earned his Bachelor of Science in Classical Ballet from The Jacob’s School of Music at Indiana University and he is a four-year graduate of The Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, USA. He further trained at summer programs including The Royal Ballet School in London, England and The Houston Ballet Academy in Houston, Texas. Morrissey completed the Preservation and Development of the Vaganova Method training seminar at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia and has instructed classical ballet classes at the Warsaw State Ballet School and Wroclaw State Opera Ballet in Poland; American Ballet Theatre Studio Company; Australian Conservatory of Ballet in Melbourne, Australia; and the Senior Men’s class at English National Ballet School in London, England. Morrissey is profiled in the January / February 2020 issue of Dance Teacher Magazine and currently serves on the jury for the Youth America Grand Prix, the International Baltic Ballet Competition in Riga, Latvia and the Japan Grand Prix in Tokyo, Japan. On December 25, 2020, Morrissey’s version of The Nutcracker was aired on Detroit’s PBS television affiliate Detroit Performs and in February 2021, Morrissey opened the doors to Interlochen’s brand new, $7.2 million, 26,000 square foot state-of-the art dance center.
Here’s an article on Dance Teacher Magazine that highlights Joseph Morrissey’s accomplishment to revitalized the Dance Program at Interlochen Center for the Arts.