Dianne McIntyre

Dianne McIntyre is regarded as an artistic pioneer with a career spanning four decades of choreography for dance, theatre, television, and film. Her individualistic movement style reflects her affinity for cultural histories, personal narratives, and the boldness, nuances, discipline, and freedom found in music and poetic text. Since 1972, she has choreographed scores of concert dances, four Broadway shows, 30 regional theatre productions, a London West End musical, two feature films, three television productions, stage movement for recording artists, and five original full-length dance dramas. She has worked with and been commissioned by world renowned dance companies including Dance Theatre of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, PHILADANCO!, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, GroundWorks Dance Theater, and Dancing Wheels, as well as more than 40 university ensembles and major dance festivals. 

McIntyre has received numerous honors for her work. Her fellowships include the John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the National Dance Residency Award, National Endowment for the Arts Three-Year Choreography Fellowship, Creative Workforce Fellowship, and National Dance Project Fellowship. Awards and nominations include the 2019 Dance/USA Honor Award, 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award, three Bessie Awards, two AUDELCO's, the Helen Hayes award, an Emmy nomination, and the Master of African American Choreography Medal from The Kennedy Center. She has also received honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from SUNY Purchase and Cleveland State University.  

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, McIntyre studied dance with Elaine Gibbs and Virginia Dryansky, and received her BFA in Dance from Ohio State University under the tutelage of Helen Alkire, Vera Blaine, James Payton, and Lucy Venable. Upon moving to New York City in 1970, she performed with Gus Solomon's Dance Company for two years. McIntyre also became a mentee of Louise Roberts, director of The Clark Center for the Performing Arts. In 1972, she founded Sounds in Motion in Harlem and soon after, opened the Sounds in Motion School. McIntyre's ensemble of dancers and musicians performed extensively in New York, throughout the country, and in Europe. In the 1970s and 1980s, Sounds in Motion in Harlem was not just a space for dancers and musicians; it became a center for what McIntyre calls “the culture crowd,” where many artists, scholars, and activists would gather to advance the movement of Black consciousness. There, she became a mentor to many promising artists, some of whom are now prominent dancers, choreographers, educators, and founders of their own companies. 

After 16 years, McIntyre closed her company to embark on an independent choreography career and has since conceived, choreographed, and directed countless projects. Inspired to create work derived from real life narratives and accompanied with in-depth research, she has conceptualized and directed her own “dance-driven dramas” that have appeared in both dance and theatre venues.  

McIntyre's work has also been featured on the large and small screens. Her work appeared in the feature films Beloved (Harpo/Disney) and Fun Size (Paramount). She choreographed HBO's award-winning film Miss Evers’ Boys, for which she received an Emmy Award nomination, and the PBS television features Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper and for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf.