Donald McKayle

Professor Donald McKayle (July 6, 1930 - April 6, 2018) 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 over a hundred 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 José 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. 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 LAIDES, 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 NOTHIN’ 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 AND 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 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. 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. He is also honored by being part of the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. 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. UPROOTED: PERO REPLANTADO in 2015 is testament 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 served at UCI as Professor/Choreographer/Teacher and Mentor to his most beloved students until his death on April 6, 2018.

Source: The Donald McKayle Legacy