Mark Morris: square talk and round numbers.

His company turned 25 this year and he observes his 50th birthday this month. But if one expected choreographer Mark Morris to indulge in a banquet of summing up, one must settle for the mantra that he has uttered for decades. So, where is his career going?

"I was always only going here," says Morris, wary of big statements. "I never set out to do anything but have a dance company and put on a show. Sure, the time will come when others will take over the world and I'm looking forward to that in the future. Not yet, though."

Blessed with a bigger and better dance company, he is still putting on those shows, but they are grander now and accompanied by live music, a practice Morris introduced in the mid-'90s. Like the three-week retrospective Morris threw in March (see "Reviews," June), those shows are now considerably more main stream than the first program that Morris brought to New York's Cunningham Studio a quarter century ago. A glance at the current schedule of the Mark Morris Dance Group reveals a trio of full-evening projects, all high visibility, prestige entertainments and all involving stellar musical collaborators.

After 10 years of planning and much trouble along the way, Morris finally produced his staging of Purcell's "semi-opera," King Arthur, in June at the London Coliseum, a co-production with Berkeley's Cal Performances, which hosts the American premiere Sept. 30. This month, Morris unveils his Mozart Dances at Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart Festival." This one travels to the Vienna Mozart celebrations in December and elsewhere in 2007. Then, next May, Morris will be at The Metropolitan Opera, both directing and choreographing Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, his second staging of this austere, 18th century classic.

Mozart Dances is the first major MMDG project to open in New York in years. The music consists of the Piano Concertos Nos. 11 and 27, separated by the Sonata in D for Two Pianos. "The concertos are really operatic; they're not throwbacks to the baroque period," Morris says. "When they go into repeats, Mozart tosses in material that really freaks you out. The slow movement of the sonata is one of the greatest pieces ever written. It's sad music. But, I think all of Mozart is sad."

What's new in Morris' career is his emergence as a pedagogical force. Since the Mark Morris Dance Center opened almost five years ago in Fort Greene down the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it has become a major community resource. More than 500 students, most of them between the ages of 7 and 12, are taking classes now. To accommodate the demand, Morris is building two additional studios on the first floor of the center.

"I had no idea this would happen, and it's fantastic," says Morris. "The students are all from the immediate neighborhood, which is fabulous. It's a dancing school, not a conservatory, which means it's still fun and interesting. And we're doing educational programs all around Brooklyn, too. Do you know that the pristine white walls of nay building have never been sprayed with graffiti? I think that means we are welcome. We're not seen as an extension of BAM. We're seen as ourselves."

Mozart Dances will be performed at New York State Theater Aug. 17-19. www.lincolncenter.org.