McKayle, Donald
- Claude Conyers
Extract
(b New York, July 6, 1930). American modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Of Jamaican heritage, he grew up in Harlem where he learned all the popular dances of the 1940s and experienced West Indian music and dance on social occasions. Inspired by a performance of African dance by Pearl Primus, he auditioned for and won a scholarship to the New Dance Group in 1947. There he trained in modern dance, ballet, tap, and various ethnic dance traditions, and within a year he had made his professional début and had choreographed his first dance, Saturday’s Child (1948), set to the poetry of Countee Cullen. He went on to develop a diverse career as dancer and choreographer in concert dance, musical theater, television, and film.
McKayle formed his own dance group in 1951 and made three major works for it: Games (1951), performed to a capella singing and chanting by the dancers; ...
