Donald Byrd started his company DONALD BYRD/THE GROUP, in Los Angeles, California in 1978, moving it to New York City in 1983. Prior to that time, Mr. Byrd studied at Tufts and Yale Universities, The Cambridge School of Ballet, the London School of Contemporary Dance, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, and with Mia Slavenska. He danced with Twyla Tharp, Karole Armitage, and Gus Solomons Jr. Since 1976, Mr. Byrd has created over eighty works for his own company as well as for major black modern dance companies including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco), Cleo Parker Robinson, Dallas Black Dance Theater, and Phoenix Dance in Leeds, England. He has also choreographed for classical companies including Pacific Northwest Ballet, Concordanse, Aterballetto in Reggio Emilia, Italy, MaggioDanza di Firenze, and Oregon Ballet Theater, to name a few.
Works created for DONALD BYRD/THE GROUP include Prodigal, The Minstrel Show, Drastic Cuts, Bristle, Life Situations: Daydreams on Giselle, The Beast, The Harlem Nutcracker, Still, JazzTrain, and In a Different Light: Duke Ellington. Mr. Byrd has also choreographed for numerous stage productions including Center Stage in Baltimore, the New York Shakespeare Festival, as well as the Peter Sellars' production of A Soldiers Tale, The Seven Deadly Sins, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky and the re-staging of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has collaborated with Anna Deavere Smith on a workshop production of House Arrest presented at the Mark Taper Forum. In 1997 he choreographed San Francisco Opera's production of Aida, and directed and choreographed Carmina Burana for the New York City Opera. He collaborated with Max Roach on many projects including the 1994 multi-media performance piece JuJu, presented at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and on We Commit: Max Roach in Germany.
Mr. Byrd is the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation
for the Arts, Metropolitan Life Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1992 he received a
Bessie Award for The Minstrel Show. Mr. Byrd served on the faculty of the California Institute
for the Arts for six years, and has taught at Wesleyan University, the School of Visual Arts, Harvard Summer
Dance Center, California State University Long Beach, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Ohio
University. Mr. Byrd is currently an associate-artist at the Yale Repertory Theater and serves on the Board
of Trustees for Dance Theater Workshop.
For information about upcoming performances featuring Donald's choreography please click here.
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