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.
photo by Larry Coleman
Dianne McIntyre
Dianne McIntyre is regarded as an artistic pioneer, with an impressive career spanning five decades with choreography for dance, theatre, opera, television and film. A 2022 Dance Magazine Awardee, 2019 Dance/USA Honor Awardee and 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, her individualistic movement style reflects her affinity for cultural histories, personal narratives and the boldness, nuances, discipline and freedom in music and poetic text. Since 1972, she has choreographed scores of concert dances, four Broadway shows, 30 regional theatre productions, a London West End musical, two feature films, three television productions, stage movement for recording artists and created five original full-length dance dramas. World renowned dance companies, such as DanceTheatre of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, GroundWorks DanceTheater, Dancing Wheels, as well as forty plus university ensembles and major dance festivals have commissioned her choreography and teaching residencies. https://diannemcintyre.com/
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
Best Dance Performance of 2024 by NYTimes
Best Dance Performance of 2024 by NYTimes
What People Are Saying
“In the 1970s, the choreographer Dianne McIntyre was a path breaker, responding in movement to the avant-garde jazz of the Black Arts era. Her Harlem-based company, Sounds in Motion, helped start the careers of the poet-playwright Ntozake Shange and the choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the founder of Urban Bush Women. Since McIntyre moved to Cleveland many years ago, her work has not often been shown in New York. The April run of “In the Same Tongue” at the new Apollo Stages at the Victoria Theater, with live music by Deidre Murray, was an overdue visit from an uncommonly fluent speaker in jazz. (Read our interview with Dianne McIntyre.)
— The New York Times
“Dianne is a living legend”
— Boston Globe
“a mind-blowing experience”
— The Arts Fuse
“Dianne McIntyre is the queen of dance collaborations and improvisations”
— Minnesota Star Tribune
“With a career spanning five decades, Dianne McIntyre is one of the most important artists 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.