Dianne McIntyre Group’s
IN THE SAME TONGUE
McIntyre and her collaborators meditate on human interaction and listening as the key to surviving this world.
IN THE SAME TONGUE is a vibrant full-length movement, sound, and language based-work. Dance legend and choreographer, Dianne McIntyre, unites a vigorous company of dancers and musicians to explore how dance and music “speak” to each other. With original music by celebrated composer Diedre Murray, it reveals how language creates worlds of beauty, alienation, harmony, tension, or peace. Dynamic vignettes ignite the stage, including McIntyre’s autobiographical stories with “the music”—such as the musical influence of the Black Arts Movement—and feature the poetry of Obie-winning playwright Ntozake Shange.
Dianne McIntyre
Dianne McIntyre is a 2022 Dance Magazine Award Honoree and recipient of a 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Martha Hill Dance Fund. Known for her concert dance work with celebrated artists on the cutting edge of music primarily in the Black spectrum, she also choreographs for theatre, film and opera. Her work appears in the 2022 opera Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage and Ricky Ian Gordon for Lincoln Center Theater and broadcast on PBS. She has choreographed for numerous companies including Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as well as her own companies - most notably, Sounds in Motion. The company/school was a vital institution in Harlem where artists met, collaborated and were nurtured at the studio. The Sounds in Motion company toured internationally. McIntyre's screen credits include Beloved (from Toni Morrison's novel) and Miss Evers' Boys garnering her an Emmy nomination. Other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Dance/USA Honor Award, a United States Artists Doris Duke Fellowship, National Black Theatre Teer Pioneer Award, Def Dance Jam Community Butterfly Award, American Dance Festival Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award/College of Arts and Sciences the Ohio State University, two Audelcos, three Bessies and two Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degrees (from SUNY Purchase and Cleveland State University). Dianne McIntyre also enjoys developing dance-driven dramas from her interviews about real life stories. Two of these are I Could Stop on a Dime and Get Ten Cents Change (her father's stories) and Open the Door, Virginia! (1950s civil rights stories). McIntyre’s mentors include Elaine Gibbs Redmond, Gus Solomons jr, Louise Roberts, Vera Blaine, Helen Alkire and Richard Davis. With Risa Steinberg, Dianne McIntyre is the co-director of the Jacob's Pillow Hicks Choreography Fellows Program.
Creative Team
Conceived and choreographed by Dianne McIntyre
Original Music by Diedre Murray
Choreography/Direction by Dianne McIntyre
Music Composition by Diedre Murray
Poetry by Ntozake Shange*
Music Direction by Gerald Brazel
Costume Design by Devario Simmons
Lighting Design by Alan C. Edwards
Scenic Design by Riw Rakkulchon
Engagement History
Duke University
Princeton University
MANCC/FSU
The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN)- world premiere
ASU Gammage
Duke Performances
Apollo Theater
Inspired...expressive...scintillating
Inspired...expressive...scintillating
What People Are Saying
“Dianne McIntyre is the queen of dance collaborations and improvisations”
— Star Tribune
“With a career spanning five decades, Dianne McIntyre is one of the most importantartists in the American dance scene.”
— Walker Magazine
“There is not a single descriptor that is Dianne McIntyre...Watching her dance and create these stories are lessons in enlightenment.”
— Dance Magazine
Touring through 2025
Development Partners
In The Same Tongue is Commissioned by Walker Art Center, Northrop at the University of Minnesota, Duke University, Apollo Theater, Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts’ Caroline Hearst Choreographer-In-Residence Program, ArtsEmerson and Thomas M. Neff.
Additional development support provided by The Ford Foundation, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Dance Place /Alan M. Kriegsman Creative Residency, Doris Duke Foundation.
In the Same Tongue was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and The Mellon Foundation.
Special thanks to: Dance Theatre of Harlem, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cleveland State University Department of Theatre and Dance, Rod Williams, Vincent Henry, Careitha Davis, Matia Johnson, Nehemiah Spencer, Cara Hagan, Elias Bailey, Donna M. Whyte, Cheryl Banks-Smith, Georgiana Pickett, Anna Glass, Mikki Shepard, Sali Ann Kriegsman.