Donald Byrd (choreographer)

Donald Byrd (born 1949) is an influential American modern dance choreographer, known for themes relating to social justice, and in particular, racism.

This article is about the American choreographer. For the late jazz trumpet player and vocalist, see Donald Byrd.

Donald Byrd
Born1949 (age 71–72)
New London, North Carolina
OccupationDancer, choreographer, director
Years active1974-
AwardsBessie Award
    (1992, for The Minstrel Show)

Career

For 24 years, beginning 1978, Byrd was the founding artistic director of Donald Byrd/The Group, which toured extensively, nationally and internationally until 2002, when he suspended operations due to financial duress. The Group was based in Los Angeles from 1978 to 1983 and in New York from 1983 to 2002. For 18 years, since 2002, Byrd has been artistic director of The Spectrum Dance Theater, based in Seattle. He is credited for having elevated Spectrum to a company of national rank.[1]

Byrd has choreographed more than 80 modern dance works for his own companies and other companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (for 32 years, since 1989), The Philadelphia Dance Company (Phildanco). Byrd also has choreographed for classical companies. He has worked with acclaimed theater and opera companies, including the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, the Intiman Theatre, the San Francisco Opera, the Seattle Opera, and the New York City Opera.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

2017 premier

Spectrum Dance Theater premiered Byrd's work, Shot, in January 2017, at the Seattle Repertory Theater. The performance included multimedia (video) and even a lecture in the middle in an acclaimed albeit visceral depiction of the 2016 fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the pleading of his wife, Reykia Scott – "Stop! Please don't shoot!" "Don't shoot him! Don't shoot him! He has no weapon! He has no weapon. Don't shoot him!"[14] Charlotte is about 49 miles (79 km) from New London, Byrd's place of birth.

2019 premier

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater premiered Byrd's work, Greenwood, December 6, 2019, at City Center in New York. Byrd described his work as "theater of disruption" ... "it disrupts our thinking about things, especially, in particular, things around race." The dance performance addresses a 1921 racist mob attack in Tulsa's segregated Greenwood District, which, at the time, was one of the country's most affluent African American communities, known as "America's Black Wall Street."[2][3][4] Byrd uses the Rashomon method, depicting three scenarios of what might have happened in an elevator.[15]

As dancer and educator

Byrd, in 1972, was a member of the Twyla Tharp Dance Company; and in 1976, he was a member of Gus Solomons Jr.'s, Dance Company.

Byrd was dance instructor at the California Institute of the Arts from 1976 through 1982, a period when other notable colleagues taught there, including Cristyne Elizabeth Lawson (born 1935) (Dean),[lower-roman 1] Larry A. Attaway (né Larry Amos Attaway; born 1949), Rebecca Bobele (1946–1995), Gloria Bowen,[lower-roman 2] Mia Slavenska (1916–2002), Tina Yuan (born 1947),[lower-roman 3] and Sandra Neels.[lower-roman 4] Byrd taught at University of California-Santa Cruz, Ohio University, and Wesleyan University. In 1993, he was Associate Artist at the Yale Repertory Theater.

Byrd has been member of Board of Directors for the Dance Theater Workshop and Dance USA in Washington, D.C., the national service organization for professional dance, established in 1982.

Awards
Special mention, 3rd Grand Prix International Video Dance Festival, 1990
Bessie Award, 1992, for The Minstrel Show
Emerging Dance Award, Metropolitan Life Foundation

Family and growing up

Byrd was born July 21, 1949, in New London, North Carolina, to Jeter Byrd Jr., and Emmarene Clark (maiden; 1928–1999). His parents divorced shortly after he was born; and soon after that, with his mother, he moved from New London to Clearwater, Florida. Donald's mother remarried and, around the time he was entering the fifth grade, she and her new husband moved to the Midwest. Donald stayed in Clearwater and was raised by his maternal grandmother, Willie Mae Clark (née Willie Mae Chester; 1910–1993),[lower-roman 5] through high school, until he graduated 1967 from Pinellas High, a bygone segregated school (closed after June 1968) in the Greenwood section of downtown Clearwater.[lower-roman 6] Growing up, his first love, according to biographies, was music. To that end, Byrd studied classical flute; and as a flutist, he became a member of the Pinellas Youth Symphony. He was also a drum major with the Pinellas High School band – the Panthers Marching Band. In high school, Byrd participated in theatrical projects and the debate team.

Byrd's first exposure to dance came when he was 16 years old. Two dancers from Balanchine's New York City Ballet – Edward Villella and Patricia McBride – conducted a lecture-demonstration in Clearwater, which Byrd attended. The dancers left an impression on Byrd, though it was several years later before he began formal training in dance.[16]

Higher education

In 1967, Byrd attended Yale University, initially majoring in philosophy, though he had thoughts of becoming an actor. At Yale, Byrd attended every play produced by the School of Drama and the Long Wharf Theatre. Yale was also where Byrd experienced overt racism for the first time, in the form of slurs and insults, these contrasting with the institutionalized racism of segregation that he had encountered growing up in the South.

The summer after his freshman year, Byrd's prowess on the flute earned him the opportunity to join an ensemble that toured Europe. On his return from Europe, Byrd decided to leave Yale, where he did not feel entirely welcome, and enroll in Tufts University in Boston.

One of the first friends Byrd made at Tufts was William Hurt. By this time, Byrd had begun to study acting seriously. It was from Hurt that Byrd first heard about the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. On Hurt’s suggestion, Byrd attended a performance of Ailey's signature work, Revelations. As put by his biography in Encyclopedia.com, "the performance was indeed a revelation for Byrd; for the first time in his life, he became aware of the theatrical power of dance."[3]

Higher education timeline
1967–1968: Attended Yale University for one year
1968–1974: Attended Tufts University and, in 1974, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree
Studied with Mia Slavenska for six years
1969–1973: Attended Cambridge School of Ballet, Cambridge, Massachusetts[lower-roman 7]
Attended Harvard Summer Dance Center in the 1970s; he taught repertory dance classes there in the 1980s[17][lower-roman 8]
1972: Attended London School of Contemporary Dance
1976: Attended Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Center

Selected works
PremierWorkVenueRoleCompany
19?? The Rehearsal Choreographer
19?? Speak Easy Choreographer
1978 Brass Orchid Choreographer
6 March 1981 Hot Time/
A Minstrel Collage		 University of California, Santa Cruz Choreographer
1981 Theme and Variations Choreographer
1981 Hot Time Choreographer
3 November 1983 Low Down and Dirty Rag[18][19]
featuring music of
Ford Dabney (1883–1958)		 Bessie Schönberg Theater at
the Dance Theater Workshop		 Choreographer Donald Byrd/Group II
1983 P-HP (Post-Holocaust Pop) or
Popular Dancing After the Bomb:
A Primer		 Bessie Schönberg Theater at
the Dance Theater Workshop		 Choreographer
12 March 1986 A Formal Response[lower-roman 9] Japan America Theatre
Los Angeles		 Choreographer Donald Byrd/The Group
1988 Partite Choreographer
Music by Mio Morales		 Donald Byrd/The Group
1988 Enactments in Time of Plague Symphony Space
New York		 Choreographer Donald Byrd/The Group
14 December 1988 Shards City Center
New York		 Choreographer Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
4 August 1989 Honey Chil' Milk Baltimore School for the Arts Choreographer
Director		 Diverse Works '89
Maryland Art Place
(in collaboration with Baltimore artists)
1991 The Minstrel Show Choreographer Spectrum Dance Theater
4 December 1991 Dance at the Gym City Center
New York		 Choreographer Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
1992 Drastic Cuts Choreographer Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
1992 A Folk Dance Choreographer Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
1993 Bristle Choreographer Boston Ballet II
1995 Life Situations: Daydreams on Giselle Choreographer
1996 Everybody Choreographer Philadelphia Dance Company
1996 The Beast
(The Domestic Violence Project)		 Choreographer
1996 Harlem Nutcracker Choreographer
2002
(workshop)		 Burlesque Choreographer Donald Byrd/The Group
2004
(workshop)		 The Color Purple
(musical)		 Alliance Theatre
Atlanta		 Choreographer
2005 The Color Purple
(musical)		 Broadway Theatre
Manhattan		 Choreographer
2009 Sentimental Cannibalism Choreographer Spectrum Dance Theater
Seattle
30 October 2015 Minstrel Show Revisited Skirball Center for the Performing Arts Choreographer Spectrum Dance Theater
Seattle
2 January 2017 Shot Seattle Repertory Theater Choreographer Spectrum Dance Theater
Seattle
6 December 2019 Greenwood City Center
New York		 Choreographer Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Collaborators

Among many others, Byrd has collaborated with composer Mio Morales on several works, including:

  • 1988: Shards, choreography by Donald Byrd; music by Mio Morales
  • 1993: The Minstrel Show, acts for coons, jigaboos, and jungle bunnies, presented by Dance Theater Workshop; artistic direction and choreography by Donald Byrd; original music by Mio Morales
  • Drastic Cuts, choreography by Donald Byrd; music by Mio Morales
  • 1992: A Folk Dance, premiered in 1992 by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; choreography by Donald Byrd; music by Mio Morales
  • 1988: Partite, presented by Donald Byrd/The Group; choreography by Donald Byrd; music by Mio Morales

Organizations
The Donald Byrd Dance Foundation, Inc., a New York not-for-profit corporation established February 7, 1985

Quotes


I felt that something about the civil rights movement didn't take, that people didn't get it, that if these kids were behaving that way, it was a clear indication that something didn't work.

— Donald Byrd
Los Angeles Times – 1992[20]
(commenting on the 1989 slaying of Yusef Hawkins, a 16-year-old African American, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who was attacked by a crowd of 10 to 30 white youths, beaten, and killed)

The most disturbing thing about Donald Byrd's Minstrel Show is this: that men and women in blackface, recreating racial parodies recognized by most people today to be unfair, can nonetheless make you laugh. And you laugh in perhaps exactly the way people laughed during those first 19th-century sendups of (over and over) the same witless, clowning, superstitious black slave.

— Joan Katherine Smith
San Francisco Examiner – 1993

Videography
  • "Fall Studio Series 2010: An Inside Look," Spectrum Dance Theater via YouTube
  • Donald Byrd: Conscientious Choreographer, via YouTube), produced by Drew Jacoby (born 1984) and Joshua Martens (flourished 2010), New York: TenduTV[lower-roman 10] (2011), 10 minutes; OCLC 1125895688, 8136575296, 7996990163, 7996757127, 7996812276, 7996589827, 7996876927, 7996689027
  • Donald Byrd excerpt, Spectrum Dance Theater (2011)
  • Shards, choreographed by Byrd, performed by Ailey 2 on their 2011 UK tour
  • The Mother of Us All, Spectrum Dance Theater (2011)
  • Dance, Dance, Dance, choreographed by Byrd, performed by the Spectrum Dance Theater (2016) via YouTube
  • Shot, choreographed by Byrd, performed by the Spectrum Dance Theater (2017)
  • Bhangra Fever, choreography by Byrd, performed by the Spectrum Dance Theater (2018)
  • Donald Byrd Choreography, performed by the Spectrum Dance Theater (2019)
  • Greenwood, premiered 2019 by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (2019) via YouTube
  • Harlem Nutcracker, discussion by Byrd, choreographed by Byrd, performed by the Spectrum Dance Theater (2019)

Notes and references

Notes
  1. Cristyne Lawson (née Christine Elizabeth Lawson; born 1935) was an early collaborator with Alvin Ailey. The two, in 1957, were cast in leading roles in Jamaica – "the Lena Horne musical."
  2. Gloria Bowen (Gloria Ann Bowen; born 1943) went on to teach at UCLA. She studied with Alexander Godunov and Pearl Lang. In 1990, Gloria relocated to Las Vegas and opened a studio for fencing and ballet with fencing master Mel North (né Melvyn Robert North; born 1924), who she married in 1990. Mel was Head Fencing Coach at UCLA for 10 years. Bowen, who is 5 feet 1 inch (155 cm), has been known as the "Petite Ballerina."
  3. Tina Yuan (née Wen-Shiu Yuan; born 1947) is most known as a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Yuan was born in Shanghai, but, when she was one, her parents fled to Taiwan, where she grew up. She was married to Richard Hanale Ornellas (born 1945) from 1971 to 1978. After her divorce, in the same year, 1978, she changed her legal name to Tina Wen-Shiu Yuan in a petition to become a United States naturalized citizen.
  4. Sandra Fawn Neels (born 1939) was, from 1963 to 1973, a dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She went on to become a prolific choreographer. Since 1974, she has been a dance theater educator at colleges, universities, arts institutes, and pre-professional programs. Since about 1992, she has been on the faculty at Winthrop University.
  5. Byrd's Harlem Nutcracker, premiered 3 years after the death of his grandmother. His work prominently and lovingly features a grandmother.
  6. Pinellas High School, in Clearwater, served African American students from Largo, Clearwater, Dunedin, Safety Harbor, and Tarpon Springs from 1934 to 1968, when desegregation commenced. The school was originally on Madison Avenue, but in 1954, a new school was built on Palmetto Street, the current site of Clearwater Intermediate. ("Remembering Pinellas High School," by Valerie Kalfrin, February 28, 2012), Patch Media, February 28, 1928)
  7. Cambridge School of Ballet was founded in 1953 by Esther Brooks (née Esther Magruder; born 1925), in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Brooks had studied at the School of American Ballet. She was married to American poet Peter Chardon Brooks (1918–2000), who was a great-great grandson of Peter Chardon Brooks (1767–1849) and grandson of Shepherd Brooks (1837–1922). Esther had previously been married to American violinist Paul Makanowitzky (1920–1998). By way of her sister, Agnes Ethel Magruder (maiden; 1921–2013), Esther was a sister-in-law of Armenian American painter Arshile Gorky (1904–1948).
  8. The Harvard Summer Dance Center was established in 1972 by Nelson Goodman (1906–1998) and Martha Armstrong Gray (née Martha Kneass Armstrong; born 1946) in collaboration with Harvard University. At Harvard, Goodman was producer of the Arts Orientation Series from 1969 to 1971, consultant in the Arts for Summer School from 1971 to 1977, and Director of the Dance Center. Gray served as Director of The Harvard Summer Dance Center for five years.
  9. A Formal Response was a Byrd production in reaction to various negative reviews in 1986. The production included a video Byrd reading and then burning the clippings. (Boston Globe, July 5, 1955, p. 23)
  10. Marc Kirschner founded TenduTV, Inc., in 2008, in New York. He is General Manager.

References
  1. "Probing an Ugly Black Stereotype – Donald Byrd Brings Back the Minstrel Show," Joan Katherine Smith, San Francisco Examiner, May 19, 1993, p. C5 (accessible via newspapers.com; subscription required)
  2. "Donald Byrd's Theory of Disruption" (Richard Hake interviews Donald Byrd; audio and transcript), WNYC News (New York), December 6, 2019
  3. "Donald Byrd 1949–," by Robert R. Jacobson, encyclopedia.com (retrieved December 12, 2019)
  4. "Can Dance Make a More Just America? Donald Byrd Is Working on It," by Siobhan Burke, New York Times, November 28, 2019
  5. "Donald Byrd: Prodigal Talent," by Iris M. Fanger, Dance Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 7, July 1993, p. 42; ISSN 0011-6009 (accessible via ProQuest 223471938, Research Library database; subscription required)
  6. "Dance – Donald Byrd's Dance of Reality: The Choreographer's 'Minstrel Show' Will Bring Audiences Face to Face with Themselves on Issues of Race," by Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1993, Calender, p. 5 (accessible via ProQuest 282068104, US Newsstream database; subscription required)
  7. "Review/Dance – Exploring the Somewhat Unknown," by Jennifer Dunning, New York Times, February 20, 1992, p. C26
  8. "Dance – Creating a 'Folk Dance' for Friends of Long Standing," by Jennifer Dunning, New York Times, December 13, 1992, p. H23
  9. "Dance View – Donald Byrd: An Unabashed Eclectic," by Jack Anderson, New York Times, August 14, 1994, p. H24
  10. San Diego Reader, January 23, 1992
  11. "Dance – Donald Byrd's Ferocious 'Drastic Cuts,'" by Alan M. Kriegsman, Washington Post, April 25, 1994 (accessible via ProQuest 307735894, US Newsstream database; subscription required)
  12. What's Up (Durham, North Carolina), January 28, 1994, p. 21
  13. The Oxford Dictionary of Dance (2nd ed.), Debra Craine, Judith Mackrell, "Byrd, Donald," Oxford University Press (2000, 2004, 2010), p. 83; LCCN 2010-930321, ISBN 978-0-19-956344-9
  14. "Dance – Donald Byrd's Shot: Compelling and Unforgettable – The show doesn't let the audience breathe, serving up round after round of ritual and repetition to drive home the point," by D. Scully, Seattle Magazine, updated April 25, 2019.
  15. "Review: At Alvin Ailey, Tragic Themes Overwhelm a Dance," by Gia Korlas, New York Times, December 8, 2019
  16. "Choreographer Comes Home – Donald Byrd Says the World Opened up for Him in the Tampa Bay Area, Where He First Discovered Dance," by John Fleming, Tampa Bay Times, October 10, 1999, pps. 1F & 6F (accessible via Newspapers.com; subscription required)
  17. "Arts & Films: Dance Notes – A Choreographer Simmers Down," by Christine Temin, Boston Globe, July 5, 1988, p. 23 (accessible via newspapers.com; subscription required)
  18. "Dance: Donald Byrd Troupe at Bessie Schönberg Theater, by Jennifer Dunning, New York Times, November 7, 1983, p. C24 (accessible via New York Times; subscription required)
  19. Low Down and Dirty Rag (videocassette 1 of 2), Donald Byrd/Group II; Video D Studios, Dance/Video Access Project, Bessie Schönberg Theater, New York, November 5, 1983; OCLC 80320928
  20. "Minstrel Show as Social Commentary – Dance: A Racially Motivated Slaying Prompted Choreographer Donald Byrd to Create a Satirical Look at the Often Derogatory Song-And-Dance Tradition," by Frankie Wright, Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1992, Section F, pps. 1 (link) & 26 (link) (accessible via Newspapers.com; subscription required)
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