Photo credit: John Gerbetz
ABOUT DONALD MCKAYLE
Donald McKayle, recipient of honors and awards in every aspect of his illustrious career, has been named by the Dance Heritage Coalition “one of America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: the first 100.” His choreographic masterworks, considered modern dance classics, GAMES, RAINBOW ‘ROUND MY SHOULDER, DISTRICT STORYVILLE, and SONGS OF THE DISINHERITED are performed around the world. He has choreographed hundreds of works for dance companies in the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe, and South America. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Cleveland Ballet, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and the Lula Washington Dance Theatre serve as repositories for his works. He is Artistic Mentor for the Limón Dance Company. Ten retrospectives have honored his choreography. In April 2005, Donald McKayle was honored at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and presented with a medal as a Master of African American Choreography.
Photo credit: Rose Eichenbaum
In 2001, he choreographed the monumental ten-hour production of TANTALUS, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with the Denver Center Theatre Company. Five Tony Nominations and Tony Awards have honored his choreography for Broadway musical theater: SOPHISTICATED LADIES, DOCTOR JAZZ, A TIME FOR SINGING, GOLDEN BOY, and for RAISIN, which garnered the Tony Award as Best Musical, and for which he received Tony nominations for both direction and choreography. For SOPHISTICATED LADIES he was also honored with an Outer Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. His most recent choreography for Broadway was showcased in IT AIN’T NOTHING’ BUT THE BLUES, which earned a Tony nomination for Best Musical. He received an Emmy nomination for the TV Special, FREE TO BE YOU AND ME. His work for film includes Disney’s BEDKNOBS, BROOMSTICKS, THE GREAT WHITE HOPE, and THE JAZZ SINGER. His other media awards include a Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for EVOLUTION OF THE BLUES and a Golden Eagle Award for ON THE SOUND. In dance he has received the Capezio Award, the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award, the American Dance Guild Award, a Living Legend Award from the National Black Arts Festival, the Heritage Award from the California Dance Educators Association, two Choreographer’s Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dance/USA Honors, an Irvine Fellowship in Dance, the Martha Hill Lifetime Achievement Award, the Annual Award from the Dance Masters of America, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival, the Black College Dance Exchange Honors, the Dance Magazine Award, and the American Dance Legacy Institute’s Distinguished and Innovative Leadership Award, among others.
Most recently, McKayle received
The Bessie's Award in New York City for his presentation of his
American Modern Classic RAINBOW 'ROUND MY SHOULDER.
The Bessie is considered one of live theatre's most coveted honors and is known to be the Academy Awards of dance.
For his work in education, he has earned the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, UCI’s Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award for Research, and he is a recipient of the UCI Medal, the highest honor given by the University of California, Irvine. At the University of California, Irvine he has also been awarded the title of Claire Trevor Professor in Dance, an endowed chair, and is a Bren Fellow. Mr. McKayle has served on the faculties of numerous international forums and many prestigious national institutions including the Juilliard School, Bennington College, Bard College, Sarah Lawrence College, the American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and was Dean of the School of Dance at the California Institute of the Arts.
His autobiography, Transcending Boundaries: My Dancing Life, published by Routledge was honored with the Society of Dance History Scholar’s De La Torre Bueno Prize. A television documentary on his life and work, Heartbeats of a Dance Maker, was aired on PBS stations throughout the United States.
Donald McKayle has created over 250 concert works and Television, Film and theater works throughout the world. He is held the position of Professor of Dance at University of California, Irvine for 36 years. UP- ROOTED: PERO REPLANTADO in 2015 is testaments of his ever-increasing innovation in the art of dance. In 2016 he created BITTERSWEET FAREWELL to the memory of the many friends he has lost and, in 2017, with his latest work CROSSING THE RUBICON: Passing the Point of No Return, McKayle digs deeply in the suffering and tragedy of millions of people around the world who must migrate from their homes. McKayle currently serves at UCI as Professor/Choreographer/Teacher and mentor to his most beloved students.
His autobiography, Transcending Boundaries: My Dancing Life, published by Routledge was honored with the Society of Dance History Scholar’s De La Torre Bueno Prize. A television documentary on his life and work, Heartbeats of a Dance Maker, was aired on PBS stations throughout the United States.
Donald McKayle has created over 250 concert works and Television, Film and theater works throughout the world. He is held the position of Professor of Dance at University of California, Irvine for 36 years. UP- ROOTED: PERO REPLANTADO in 2015 is testaments of his ever-increasing innovation in the art of dance. In 2016 he created BITTERSWEET FAREWELL to the memory of the many friends he has lost and, in 2017, with his latest work CROSSING THE RUBICON: Passing the Point of No Return, McKayle digs deeply in the suffering and tragedy of millions of people around the world who must migrate from their homes. McKayle currently serves at UCI as Professor/Choreographer/Teacher and mentor to his most beloved students.
Photo: Nicholas Iverson
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Dance Legend Donald McKayle Captures the Struggles of Minorities in Beautiful Choreography
BY JAZLEY FAITH Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Nothing will stop Donald McKayle from choreographing dance. Not even the wheelchair parked at the front of a dance studio at UC Irvine. The 86-years-strong, American modern dance legend watches rehearsal intently,ready to instruct his troop of dancers.
"When I got very involved in choreography, I just stopped dancing, more or less," McKayle says. "I just figured, 'Well, I guess it's time to do this other thing that I love to do.' I think, for most dancers, if you took dance away from them, you would cut out a piece of their heart, but I'm not that way."
Professional dancers and companies have taught and performed his works throughout the United States for more than half a century. McKayle's oeuvre is rooted in the histories and struggles of oppressed minorities, especially the African-American diaspora, and political troubles in Argentina (inspired by his time there decades ago, which he describes as vibrant). He fInds these stories tender, humane and honest-qualities he incorporates into movement for the stage. In February, McKayle debuted Crossing the Rubicon: Passing the Point of No Return, which portrays Syrian refugees escaping via water.
Born in New York City, McKayle grew up in East Harlem in the 1930s. The second child of Jamaican activist parents, McKayle experienced racism and segregation firsthand from the African-American, Puerto Rican and Jewish immigrants in his neighborhood. His mother arranged for him to attend public schools outside Harlem, exposing him to other parts of society that awakened and heightened his sense of injustice and inequality.
Despite having no formal dance training, McKayle earned a scholarship for the New Dance Group when he was 17. He trained in ballet, tap, modern, Afro-Caribbean, Hindu and Haitian dance styles; his work ethic led him to learn directly from Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Sophie Maslow and other dance titans. From there, he worked in Broadway, television and film. Highlights of his career include choreography for Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks; a 1974 Tony Award for direction and choreography of the Broadway version of A Raisin In the Sun; and a PBS documentary about his life, Heartbeats of a Dance Maker. Currently, McKayle works with his hand-selected Etude Ensemble at UCI.
McKayle likes to create pieces that last up to 30 minutes, every second filled with movement by multiple bodies. His répétiteur, Bret Yamanaka, assists with formations, production and teaching choreography, but McKayle is fully in charge. "You become his instrument; you become his body," Yamanaka explains.
Back in the studio, everything and everyone moves around McKayle. Rehearsals are spent running choreography, exchanging feedback and trying it again. It's up to the dancers to make it happen.
"Sometimes I think I can get up when I can't," McKayle confesses. "It's frustrating when I think I can do something that I can't. But I'm old enough to take everything that comes to me and say, 'Okay.' There's a time for everything."
After rehearsal is over, dancers cluster in front of him, taking their turn to say, "Thank you, Mr. McKayle!" He smiles and nods in acknowledgement of each one until the space is empty, but movement is still running through his mind. "I have no reason to stop."
Dance Legend Donald McKayle Captures the Struggles of Minorities in Beautiful Choreography
BY JAZLEY FAITH Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Nothing will stop Donald McKayle from choreographing dance. Not even the wheelchair parked at the front of a dance studio at UC Irvine. The 86-years-strong, American modern dance legend watches rehearsal intently,ready to instruct his troop of dancers.
"When I got very involved in choreography, I just stopped dancing, more or less," McKayle says. "I just figured, 'Well, I guess it's time to do this other thing that I love to do.' I think, for most dancers, if you took dance away from them, you would cut out a piece of their heart, but I'm not that way."
Professional dancers and companies have taught and performed his works throughout the United States for more than half a century. McKayle's oeuvre is rooted in the histories and struggles of oppressed minorities, especially the African-American diaspora, and political troubles in Argentina (inspired by his time there decades ago, which he describes as vibrant). He fInds these stories tender, humane and honest-qualities he incorporates into movement for the stage. In February, McKayle debuted Crossing the Rubicon: Passing the Point of No Return, which portrays Syrian refugees escaping via water.
Born in New York City, McKayle grew up in East Harlem in the 1930s. The second child of Jamaican activist parents, McKayle experienced racism and segregation firsthand from the African-American, Puerto Rican and Jewish immigrants in his neighborhood. His mother arranged for him to attend public schools outside Harlem, exposing him to other parts of society that awakened and heightened his sense of injustice and inequality.
Despite having no formal dance training, McKayle earned a scholarship for the New Dance Group when he was 17. He trained in ballet, tap, modern, Afro-Caribbean, Hindu and Haitian dance styles; his work ethic led him to learn directly from Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Sophie Maslow and other dance titans. From there, he worked in Broadway, television and film. Highlights of his career include choreography for Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks; a 1974 Tony Award for direction and choreography of the Broadway version of A Raisin In the Sun; and a PBS documentary about his life, Heartbeats of a Dance Maker. Currently, McKayle works with his hand-selected Etude Ensemble at UCI.
McKayle likes to create pieces that last up to 30 minutes, every second filled with movement by multiple bodies. His répétiteur, Bret Yamanaka, assists with formations, production and teaching choreography, but McKayle is fully in charge. "You become his instrument; you become his body," Yamanaka explains.
Back in the studio, everything and everyone moves around McKayle. Rehearsals are spent running choreography, exchanging feedback and trying it again. It's up to the dancers to make it happen.
"Sometimes I think I can get up when I can't," McKayle confesses. "It's frustrating when I think I can do something that I can't. But I'm old enough to take everything that comes to me and say, 'Okay.' There's a time for everything."
After rehearsal is over, dancers cluster in front of him, taking their turn to say, "Thank you, Mr. McKayle!" He smiles and nods in acknowledgement of each one until the space is empty, but movement is still running through his mind. "I have no reason to stop."
