Archives: Honorary Members

Adam W. McKinney has a diverse and accomplished background in arts leadership across the globe, having served as an arts organization director, tenured professor, choreographer, dancer, educator and activist. McKinney was most recently an Associate Professor of Dance in Ballet with tenure in the School for Classical & Contemporary Dance at Texas Christian University. There he taught courses in classical ballet, modern dance and choreography. He was the Co-Director/Co-Founder of DNAWORKS, an arts and service organization committed to healing through the arts and dialogue. Previously, he was the inaugural Dance Department Chair at New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe.

He has danced with some of the world’s preeminent dance companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Béjart Ballet Lausanne (Switzerland), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and Milwaukee Ballet Company.

McKinney has led dance work with diverse populations across the U.S. and North America, and in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. A leader who is committed to making ballet and dance accessible to all, he served as a U.S. Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa through the U.S. State Department. McKinney has created community social justice and awareness projects including the interactive Fort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse and “The Borders Project” at the Mexico/U.S. and Palestine/Israel borders. He was also honored with the NYU President’s Service Award for his dance work with populations who struggle with heroin addiction.

McKinney was named one of the most influential African Americans in Milwaukee by St. Vincent DePaul. He holds a BFA in Dance Performance with high honors with a focus on classical ballet from Butler University and an MA in Dance Studies with concentrations in Race and Trauma theories from the Gallatin School at New York University.

As Principal soloist at the Berlin Opera Ballet, Alexandre Munz trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School in the early 80’s before the emergence of somatic practices and modern dance in France. Ten years later, after an intense international career, Munz leads in the cutting edge of contemporary international somatic practices, initially created to self-heal from chronic pathologies and migraines developed during ballet training.

Now, as choreographer and a educator, his innovative pedagogy S.A.F.E.™ – Spine Advanced Functional Empowerment – received a grant by the French Ministry of Culture to implement a major research and development project in partnership with national institutes, gathering health experts, high-level dancers and athletes. A scientific treatise of this work is archived at the Centre National de la Danse.

S.A.F.E. Floor™ (a somatic practice), SAFE Barre™ (a barre training preserving legacy) and SAFE Graphysiology™ (tools for dance-making through the use of mental imagery) are based on the spine’s spiral concept and the activation of a neuromuscular reflex that allow muscles to generate contraction and relaxation simultaneously (reflex of reciprocal innervation). With this interactive muscular concept, dancers automatically strengthen deeper muscles while enhancing their body-perception in tridimensional patterns. Munz’s methods are currently utilized by dancers and high-level athletes in Europe and in the United States.
In 2013, Alexandre Munz was chosen by President Alkis Raftis to become a member of the UNESCO International Dance Council. And in 2014, he was appointed an Honorary Member of CORPS de Ballet International, Inc.
www.thesafeproject.net

Igal Perry, Founder and Artistic Director of Peridance Contemporary Dance Company and Peridance Capezio Center, is a world-renowned choreographer, ballet master, and dance educator. Mr. Perry’s elegant choreography, often in collaboration with contemporary composers, has been described as “blessedly inventive” (Jennifer Dunning, NYTimes). His works have been set on prestigious companies and performed at renowned festivals including Florence Dance Festival and Invito Alla Danza (Italy), Batsheva and Bat-Dor Dance Companies and the Karmiel Dance Festival (Israel), Ailey II and Complexions Contemporary Ballet (NYC), Companhia de Danca de Lisboa (Portugal), and Alberta Ballet (Canada). This year his new work Infinity will be set on the San Jose Ballet.  Born in Israel, Igal Perry began his dancing career with Karmon, a folk dance company. He later joined the Bat-Dor Dance Company, where he worked with leading teachers and choreographers including Alvin Ailey, Benjamin Harkarvy, John Butler, Rudi Van Dantzig, Inesse Alexandrov, Paul Sanasardo, and Lar Lubovitch. Upon arriving in the United States, Mr. Perry joined Dennis Wayne’s Dancers as ballet master and choreographer. During that period, he staged John Butler’s work for the NYC Opera, the Opera of Munich, Caracas Ballet, and Teatro Alla Scala in Milan, where he also directed the world premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s opera Paradise Lost. From 1981-1982, Mr. Perry headed the ballet department at Jacob’s Pillow. In 1983, he launched his dance school, Peridance Capezio Center, now one of New York City’s leading dance institutions. A year later he founded Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, for which he has choreographed over 50 works, with performances at BAM, The Joyce Theater, and City Center. In addition to his daily class at Peridance, Mr. Perry serves as guest faculty/choreographer at The Jacob’s Pillow Festival, The Ailey School, and Marymount Manhattan College. Since 1995, Mr. Perry has served as a guest teacher at The Juilliard School, where he staged his Intimate Voices and Mourning Song. His international teaching engagements include Scapino Ballet and Het National Ballet (Holland), Laterna Magica and the National Ballet (Prague), Architanz (Tokyo), The Royal Ballet of Sweden and Balettakademien (Sweden), the National Ballet of China, and the Kwang-Ju City Ballet Company (Korea).

Ballez Creator Katy Pyle is a genderqueer lesbian dancer and choreographer who began Ballez in 2011 to explore their complicated relationship to the cishet patriarchal form of
ballet, and to make space for their own, and their communities’, presence within it.

Having studied ballet since age 3, Pyle became a professional apprentice at 13; left home at 14 to study full-time in the conservatory at North Carolina School of the Arts, and, at 16, was told
by teachers “you would have had a great career if you had been born a boy…” Pyle was pushed out of the ballet program. Because of that rupture, Pyle began studying choreography for the first time. After graduating from NCSA’s high school program in ’99, Pyle attended Hollins University, became a Drag King, and studied myriad experimental and post-modern dance forms. Pyle graduated summa cum laude in 2002 from Hollins University with a BA in Multimedia Performance Art.

Pyle then moved to New York City and danced in the works of Ivy Baldwin, Faye Driscoll, John Jasperse, Xavier Le Roy, Karinne Keithley Syers, Jennifer Monson, Stina Nyberg, Anna Sperber, Katie Workum, and Young Jean Lee, among many others. Simultaneously, Pyle created work alongside collaborators Eleanor Hullihan, Rebecca Brooks and Jules Skloot. Evening length works: “Salute to Ex-Best Friends,”asubtout (Pyle & Eleanor Hullihan), Galapagos, 2005; “The Lady Centaur Show,” asubtout, PS 122, 2007; “THE WAY: You Make Me Feel,” Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, 2010; and “COVERS,” The Bushwick Starr, 2012.

In 2011, Pyle founded the Ballez to insert the herstory and lineage of lesbian, queer, and transgender people into the ballet canon through the creation of large-scale story ballets, open classes, and public engagement. Major works include “The Firebird, a Ballez,” at Danspace Project in Spring (with a reprise that Fall) 2013, “Variations on Virtuosity, a Gala with the Stars of the Ballez” at American Realness at Abrons Arts Center in January 2015, and “Sleeping Beauty & the Beast,” at La Mama in Spring 2016, “Slavic Goddesses,” at the Kitchen, January 26-28, 2017- 6 solos for Ballez dancers, as a collaborative project with artist Paulina Olowska, and the recent “Giselle of Loneliness,” at The Joyce, June 10, 2021.

Ballez Class began at Brooklyn Arts Exchange in 2011, and Pyle has since brought the class to Gibney Dance, Slippery Rock University, Stolt Scenkonst and MDT (Stockholm), SCDT (Northampton), LGBTQ Center at BSP (Kingston), Princeton, Yale, Movement Research, Allied Media Conference (Detroit), CounterPULSE (San Francisco), University Musical Society (Ann Arbor), Irreverent Dance (London), Beyond Tolerance Youth Conference (NYC), New York University, and Sarah Lawrence College. Pyle has set Ballez work on students through Guest Artist Residencies at Mason Gross, Marymount Manhattan, Bowdoin College, Whitman College, Eugene Lang, and Beloit College.

Pyle currently teaches undergraduate dancers at Eugene Lang College at The New School, Marymount Manhattan College, and professional dancers at Gibney Dance, 890 Broadway.

Pyle has garnered support for the company from the Hodder Fund, United Artists, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Jerome Foundation, Mertz Gilmore, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and over 1000 individual donors. Pyle was a 2013-2015 Artist in Residence at BAX, and has received residencies through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mount Tremper Arts, Rockbridge Artist’s Exchange, the Bushwick Starr, the Dragon’s Egg, Abrons Arts Center, and La Mama, ETC.

Visionary dance educator Mavis Staines has revolutionized the way dance is taught, performed, witnessed and shared across Canada and around the world. Over her 30-year tenure as Artistic Director of Canada’s National Ballet School, she has cemented the School’s reputation as the leading champion of excellence, access, and inclusion in dance. Born in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Staines received her ballet training at Canada’s National Ballet School. Upon graduation from NBS, she danced as a first soloist with the National Ballet of Canada and the Dutch National Ballet until an accident cut short her performance career. She subsequently enrolled in NBS’ Teaching Training Program, joining NBS’ Artistic Faculty in 1982. She was appointed Artistic Director in 1989.

Staines’ approach to the holistic wellbeing of the students in NBS’ elite Professional Ballet Program sparked an international conversation about classical ballet training, with a focus on progressive approaches in pedagogy, mind-body awareness, and nurturing the whole dancer. Her wholehearted enthusiasm for exploring technology in the arts, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and partnership building put Canada and NBS on the map of global leaders in ballet. Staines served as a juror for the Prix de Lausanne from 1993 to 1995 and was President of the Jury in 1998 and 1999. In 2001, she accepted the volunteer position of Artistic President Designate for the Prix de Lausanne and assumed the full responsibilities of Artistic President from 2002 to 2008. A lifelong believer in the benefits that dance can offer all of us, Staines championed the establishment and rapid growth of NBS Sharing Dance, NBS’ community-engagement initiative that encompasses the widest range of community programs of any ballet school in the world. Her commitment to making the power of dance more accessible has opened doors for more than 100,000 Canadians of every age, ability, and aspiration to-date. Mavis Staines is a recipient of the 2019 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (GGPAA), a Member of the Order of Canada, and a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Mr. Stevenson’s career began in London, England where he received his dance training at Arts Educational School. Upon graduation he was awarded the prestigious Adeline Genee Gold Medal, the highest award given to a dancer by the Royal Academy of Dancing. At the age of 18, he was invited to join the world famous Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (currently the Royal Ballet). During his time at the Royal Ballet, he was fortunate to perform with and learn from many of the great stars of ballet, including Sir Fredrick Ashton and Sir Kenneth MacMillan. A few years later, his career would take him to the London Festival Ballet when Sir Anton Dolin invited him to become a Principal Dancer and to perform leading roles in several classic ballets.

In 1967 the English National Ballet asked him to stage his first ballet, the highly successful production of The Sleeping Beauty, which starred Dame Margot Fonteyn. A year after staging the ballet in England, Mr. Stevenson arrived in the United States, lending his vast talents and experience to productions across the country. At the request of Rebekah Harkness, he journeyed to New York where he assumed the position of Artistic Director of the Harkness Ballet. In 1970 he and Fredrick Franklin became the Co-Artistic Directors of the National Ballet in Washington, D.C. While there, he choreographed Cinderella and staged a new production of The Sleeping Beauty for the inaugural season of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

In 1976 Mr. Stevenson was enticed to move to Houston, Texas and become the Artistic Director of the Houston Ballet. Over the next 27 years, he nurtured the Houston Ballet from a small provincial ensemble to one of the largest and most respected ballet companies in the country and around the world. During his tenure at the Houston Ballet, Mr. Stevenson developed the company’s repertoire by acquiring works of the world’s most respected choreographers, commissioning new works, staging classics and choreographing new works himself. While there, he founded a school and used his skills as a teacher to develop dancers. As a result, he trained several generations of world-renowned dancers, including Janie Parker, Carlos Acosta, Lauren Andersen, Li Cunxin and many others. He is now using those remarkable abilities to accomplish the same for Texas Ballet Theater.

Mr. Stevenson traveled to China in 1978 on behalf of the United States government as part of a cultural exchange program. At the invitation of the Chinese government, he has returned almost every year to teach at the Beijing Dance Academy. In 1985 he was instrumental in the creation of the Choreographic Department at the Beijing Dance Academy. He is now the only foreigner to have been made Honorary Faculty Member of the Beijing Dance Academy and the Shenyang Conservatory of Music.
In July 2003 Mr. Stevenson became Artistic Director of Texas Ballet Theater. Since his arrival, Texas Ballet Theater has experienced tremendous growth. Budget size has increased each year and now exceeds $7.3 million annually. He has continued to expand the company’s repertoire, staging both the classics and choreographing original works. The international Company now includes dancers from countries from countries around the world, including England, Cuba, Ukraine, Israel, Brazil and the United States. Texas Ballet Theater’s education programs have also grown, as enrollment at the Dallas and Fort Worth Academies have reached full capacity. Texas Ballet Theater is the resident ballet company at the two premier performance venues in North Texas, the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas and the AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House in Dallas, Texas.

Mr. Stevenson is one of the great story tellers in the ballet world. His own choreography includes full length works: Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, The Nutcracker, Coppelia, Don Quixote, the original production of Peer Gynt (which opened Norway’s Bergen Festival Gala in 1983), Dracula, The Snow Maiden and Cleopatra. He has received numerous awards for his choreography, including three gold medals at the International Ballet Competitions. He has staged his ballets for companies around the world, including the English National Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Paris Opera Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, La Scala, Munich State Opera Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, London City Ballet, Ballet de Santiago, Compañia Nacional De Danza, The Norwegian National Ballet, Estonia National Opera Ballet, and many other companies in the United States. His talents have also allowed him to work with celebrities such as John Travolta, Elton John, Chita Rivera and many others.

For his contributions to the world of international dance, Mr. Stevenson was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II in the New Year’s Honors Listed in December 1999. In April 2000 he was presented with the Dance Magazine Award, one of the most prestigious honors on the American dance scene. In 2005 Mr. Stevenson was awarded the Texas Medal of Arts.
Ben Stevenson, a decorated and acclaimed ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer, has celebrated over 40 years of accomplishments in American ballet.

Elizabeth Yntema is the President & Founder of the Dance Data Project®. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for WTTW/WFMT and the Board of Directors of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Liza was graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 and is 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where she was awarded the Jane L. Mixer Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice. Ms. Yntema is a past member of numerous organizations in the Chicagoland area, including the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Women’s Bar Association, Trust for Public Land in Illinois, Winnetka Board of the Northwestern Settlement House, the Children’s Home and Aid Society, and the Junior League of Chicago, where she was named as Volunteer of the Year for her work advocating for homeless women and children.

Liza and Dance Data Project® have been featured in the book Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Lisa DeFrank-Cole, Professor and Director of Leadership Studies at West Virginia University and Sherylle J. Tan, Ph. D. a developmental psychologist and Director of Internships and KLI Research at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Ms. Yntema has also been awarded the inaugural Top Tier Feminist Giver Award by Philanthropy Women in March of 2021.

Ms. Yntema was recently selected for the first national cohort of Chief, a global network of women founders and C-Suite executives. She was also honored to be selected as a lifetime Honorary Member of Corps De Ballet in June of 2022.