Professor, Dance
Claire Trevor School of the Arts

Choreography, modern dance, graduate choreographic advisor

dance.arts.uci.edu/dfacMcKayle.html

Donald McKayle’s distinguished career began in 1948 and has spanned choreography, direction, writing, education, and performance in dance, theater, film, recordings, and television. He has choreographed over fifty works for companies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and South America. Some of Mckayle’s now classic choreographic works, Games, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder, District Storyville, and Songs of the Disinherited, were first performed by Donald McKayle and Company and then, after he relocated from New York to California, by the Inner City Repertory Dance Company of Los Angeles under Mr. McKayle’s artistic directorship, and are being performed anew by dance companies around the United States as part of the American Dance Festival’s prestigious program, "The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance." While Donald Mckayle no longer has his own dance company, he maintains an ongoing relationship with several dance companies that serve as repositories for his works: the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, the Cleveland San Jose Ballet, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theater. He has most recently been appointed Artistic mentor and Resident Choreographer with the Limón Dance Company.

In 1963 Mr. McKayle received the Capezio Award and in 1992, the Samuel H. Scripps/ American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in Modern Dance. 1994 marked a new year of awards for Mr. McKayle: the American Dance Guild’s Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement, the Lehman Dance Award, and a Living Legend Award for Distinguished Achievement in Dance from the National Black Arts Festival. 1995 continued with the Heritage Award from the California Dance Educators Association, a Choreographer’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he was honored in a retrospective program, Trailblazers: Dancers of Change, saluting him and Agnes de Mille, where he was presented with a resolution from the County of Los Angeles: "...as a treasured asset to the community he has so deeply touched through his work." His choreography and direction for Broadway musical theater, television, and films have been honored by five Tony nominations, an Outer Critics Circle Award, the NAACP Image Award, an Emmy nomination, a Los Angeles Drama Logue Award, and a Golden Eagle award. Donald McKayle is in charge of graduate choreographic thesis projects and serves as Artistic Director of UCI Dance. He teaches advanced modern technique and choreography.

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=2656

Last updated
02/22/2002