Streaming file 1 (1 hour and 47 minutes), April 5, 2021. Donald Byrd speaks with Thomas F. DeFrantz about his childhood and family background including his place of birth (New London, North Carolina) and move with his mother to the house of her father and step-mother (his step-grandmother) in Tampa, Florida when he was six months old; his warm and loving relationship with his step-grandmother; his lack of awareness (at the time) of racism; the impact on him of attending his first live orchestra performance; the role of religion in his childhood; his impressions of his first funeral; attending church for its entertainment value, for example, the pageants and the story-telling; an anecdote about walking out of church with his grandmother just before he was about to be baptized; exposure to the arts including seeing regional opera productions; acting in school plays; participating in a local theater company's productions including Marat/Sade [The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade], Harold Pinter's The homecoming, and Brendon Behan's The hostage; attending performances, at the Asolo [Repertory] Theatre in Sarasota and pursuing his interest in classical music; other classes relating to the arts he took while in high school including an art history course, tap dance lessons, and classes in interpretive dance; at age 14 becoming the drum major for his school marching band, which included choreographing for the band; Claude Kennedy, an upperclassman who was a mentor and role model to Byrd; other high school friends with whom he explored contemporary popular music and engaged in political activism; participating in a tutorial program aimed at Black students as a step toward his applying to and matriculating at Yale University; his rebelliousness and questioning of norms since childhood; his time at Yale including his encountering classism for the first time and his feeling of alienation; other experiences at Yale including his discovery of foreign films and success as a member of the band; his emotional breakdown and decision to leave; his accent including how it has changed over the years; his first trip to Europe, on tour with the Yale band; transferring to Tufts University after his first year at Yale; his time at Tufts, in particular how much more comfortable he felt there than at Yale; an anecdote about how meeting a Black ballet student, Beth Shorter, in his sophomore year led to his taking ballet class in Cambridge (Massachusetts) and renewing his interest in dance generally; the choreography course he took at Tufts, which included a month of classes with Steve Paxton's students; taking every opportunity to dance at Tufts and elsewhere; after graduation from Tufts in 1983 spending a year in Cambridge (Massachusetts); ultimately focusing on dance rather than music and theater; some of his memorable teachers including Carol Jordan and Martha Armstrong Gray; his occasional trips to New York during this time to participate in performing arts events; Gus Solomons jr including their first encounter.
Streaming file 2 (1 hour and 51 minutes), April 12, 2021. Donald Byrd speaks with Thomas F. DeFrantz about the events and circumstances that led to his accepting a scholarship with the Ailey School and deciding to become a dancer when he was 21; his two years at the Ailey School including his feeling that he was an outsider and his determination to work on his technique; (briefly) Sylvia Waters; an anecdote about Alvin Ailey's comment to Byrd after watching him dance; (briefly) Billy [William] Gornel; dancers he admired including Waters, Sara Yarborough, and Dudley Williams; his extracurricular dancing at the time including with Kathryn Posin (as Gornel's understudy) and with Elizabeth Keen; successfully auditioning for Twyla Tharp [Dance]; reflections on why he was let go from Tharp's company as well as what he learned while he was a member; various techniques he studied over the years; recovering from a rough period after being let go from Tharp's company; auditioning for Gus Solomons jr and joining his company [The Solomons Company/Dance]; Solomons' working methods including the autonomy he accorded to and required of his dancers; how this led him to individuate as a dancer; his life in New York City before moving to California, in particular how he managed to survive as a young artist without much money; when Solomons became the dean of the dance school at CalArts [now Sharon Lund Disney School of Dance], moving to California and teaching at CalArts [California Institute of the Arts]; his technique class initially based on Solomons' work and later including combinations he created himself; his work Street dance and how its success led him to create more works for CalArts students; Cristyne Lawson and her mentoring of him; an anecdote about auditioning for Bella Lewitzky; his time at CalArts as when he started coming into his own identity as an artist; during this period also teaching technique at Cal State, Long Beach [California State University, Long Beach] and taking technique class with Gloria Newman; his memories of Newman as a teacher and as an artist; his experimenting and exploring with the goal of making better dances; reflections on his time at CalArts including an anecdote about Betty Walberg; the life lessons choreographing has taught him; renting a studio in Los Angeles and offering classes to the general public; his substance abuse including its origins and how he justified it to himself; his first self-produced concert, at the Coronet Theater in Los Angeles, which led to his forming a company Donald Byrd and the Group [Donald Byrd/The Group]; the company's regular performances in the Los Angeles area; the difficulties he had financing the company including its New York performance, and how this affected him and the company; his increasing sense that he was part of a tradition of West Coast choreographers and that the center of gravity of [modern] dance was moving to the West Coast; how living in Los Angeles influenced him including the incorporation of popular culture into his choreography and the expansion of his artistic imagination; the circumstances and people that led to his moving to Minneapolis (Minnesota), in particular Madeleine Sosin who helped him find work; performing in a project directed by Robert Wilson [The Knee Plays, the Minneapolis section of the opera The Civil wars: a tree is best measured when it is down] including how he responded to Wilson's style of directing.
Streaming file 3 (1 hour and 50 minutes), April 14, 2021. Donald Byrd speaks with Thomas F. DeFrantz about the reasons he moved to Minneapolis; more on Madeleine Sosin and his work in Minneapolis; leaving Minneapolis for New York where he lived with Starr Reese and took class at Merce Cunningham's studio; his experience at the studio; quitting the class abruptly including an anecdote about Cunningham's comment on this years later; reasons he was drawn to Cunningham's classes and his work; reminiscences of Cunningham works including his Quartet and his Exercise piece; a performance anecdote about dancing Duck dance with Karole Armitage at La Mama [Experimental Theatre Club]; his starting to create work again, with dancers he had known from Cunningham's studio and elsewhere; the various factors including a negative review by Jennifer Dunning [of Vice, circumstances and situations, performed at La Mama] that led to his entering a [substance abuse] rehabilitation facility; after rehabilitation creating A formal response [premiered in Los Angeles by Donald Byrd/The Group], which was a response to Dunning's review; his anger at this time and how he overcame it; possible reasons for the nature of the critical response his work has elicited over the years including David [R.] White's observations on the subject; his thoughts on Brian Siebert's review of his recent work [And the sky in not cloudy all day] for PNB [Pacific Northwest Ballet]; reconnecting with Sylvia Waters and creating the work Crumble for Ailey II; the happiness he felt working with the young Ailey dancers; an anecdote about Ailey's praising his work; Ailey's commissioning him to create a work (Shards) for the main company [Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater]; his feelings upon learning of Ailey's death (in 1989 just before the premiere of Byrd's work Dances at a gym) and at his funeral; making his company more racially and ethnically diverse; after Ailey's death continuing to make work for the Ailey company including an anecdote about an ultimatum from Judy [Judith Jamison]; cutting back on the size of his own company [names the dancers in the downsized company]; his first work for the smaller company, Drastic cuts, including its underlying concepts of spectacle and virtuosity, and its three-part structure; the work's reception; his next work Bristle, which was perceived by many of his white peers as misogynistic; his focus during this period as exploring what the body could do, in particular within the context of Black aesthetics; his finding himself in a "golden age" in that he had lots of ideas and was getting lots of commissions; his theatrical works such as The minstrel show; his reinterpretations from a Black perspective of works from the European and 20th century canons including Life situations: daydreams on Giselle, Prodigal, and Miraculous mandarin; (briefly) Mats Eks as an influence on his theatrical works; the various factors that led him to create his version of The nutcracker (The Harlem nutcracker); his feeling that white people are baffled by some of his works, for example The sleeping beauty notebook; creating works that were commercially viable but did not satisfy him artistically; David Lieberman [of David Lieberman/Artists Representatives], Ben [Benjamin] Mordecai, and the management of Donald Byrd/The Group around the time of The Harlem nutcracker, including the firing of Lieberman; his reconciliation and continuing relationship with Lieberman; how his experiences with the musical White noise and The Harlem nutcracker helped him understand what is most important to him when making professional decisions; curiosity as the main motivation for his working on Broadway musicals such as The color purple as well as films, and operas; the reasons he accepted his current position as artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater; the challenges of making the company his own; the unsuccessful effort by some board members to dismiss him; realizing that Spectrum is his job not his identity; teaching, in particular the young students at the school at Spectrum.