Conversations: Crossing Paths with Dyane Harvey, Dianne McIntyre and Jasmine Johnson

Photo by Larry Coleman

Dianne McIntyre is regarded as an artistic pioneer, with an impressive choreography career spanning five decades in dance, theatre, television and film. The recipient of a 2020 Doris Duke United States Artists Fellowship, the 2019 Dance/USA Honor, a 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award, as well as a 2007 John S. Guggenheim Fellowship, her individualistic movement style reflects her affinity for cultural histories, personal narratives and the boldness, nuances, discipline and freedom in music and poetic text. Example of such are in the dance-driven dramas she creates about real people from conducted interviews with people, most notably “I Could Stop on a Dime and Get Ten Cents Change” and “Open the Door, Virginia!” Since 1972 Ms. McIntyre has choreographed across genres and disciplines, including for scores of concert dances, four Broadway shows, thirty regional theatre productions, a London West End musical, two feature films, three television productions, stage movement for multiple recording artists and five original full-length dance dramas. This includes choreography for the opera INTIMATE APPAREL, recently running at Lincoln Center Theater. She has been commissioned by Dance Theatre of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, GroundWorks Dance Theater, Dancing Wheels, as well as forty-plus university ensembles and major dance festivals. Her awards and nominations include three Bessie Awards, two AUDELCO’s, one Helen Hayes award and four nominations, an Emmy Nomination, Master of African American Choreography Medal from The Kennedy Center, two Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degrees and many more. Dianne McIntyre is also the co-director of the Hicks Choreography Fellows Program at Jacob’s Pillow. Her mentors include Elaine Gibbs Redmond, Gus Solomons jr, Louise Roberts and Dr. Richard Davis.

Photo by Peter Dressel

Dyane Harvey-Salaam is an accomplished performing artist, founding member of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, educator, choreographer and certified Pilates teacher. She has appeared as a principal soloist with some of the most recognized theatre and dance companies across the United States and abroad. Broadway, television and film credits include: The Wiz, Timbuktu!, Spell# 7 and Free to Dance. Her choreography has been seen in many theatrical and dance projects including: “Loves Fire” and “Harriet Returns” (The Acting Company), “The African Company Presents Richard III,” “Yerma” and “Flyin’West” (NYU Graduate Acting Program), “lavender lizards and lilac landmines, layla’s dream” (University of Florida at Gainesville Graduate Acting Program), “Bones of Our Ancestors” (PBS Special) and the award winning “Great Men of Gospel” (New Federal Theatre). She continues to share her knowledge and craftsmanship with students at Princeton and Hofstra Universities through coursework and choreography. Awards include a 2017 New York Dance & Performance (Bessie) Award for Outstanding Production, two Audelco Awards (performance and choreography), Monarch Merit Award, Goddess and Gurus Award, Black Theatre Award, and most recently she was recognized as one of 12  “Distinguished Women” by the Harlem Arts Alliance in conjunction with the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. ASE to the Ancestors!

Photo courtesy Jasmine Johnson

Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University (2021-22) and an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work explores the politics of Black movement including dance, performance and diasporic travel. Johnson’s interdisciplinary research and teaching are situated at the intersection of diaspora theory, dance and performance studies, ethnography, and Black feminisms.

Johnson has received a number of fellowships and grants including those from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her first book project, Rhythm Nation: West African Dance and the Politics of Diaspora, is a transnational ethnography on the industry of West African dance. Her work has been published by The Black Scholar, The Drama Review, ASAP Journal, Dance Research Journal, Africa and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, Theater Survey, Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, Aster(ix) and elsewhere. She serves as a Board Director for the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance and for the Dance Studies Association.