Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's new artistic director, Adam W. McKinney, sets the stage for the company to thrive one hundred years from now.

Published: July 24, 2023, 11:30 a.m.

Barely four months into his tenure as the artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Adam W. McKinney is already implementing revolutionary ways to build on the company\u2019s existing strengths with his gaze firmly set on its overall health a hundred years from now.Adam has a remarkable resume as a ballet dancer, a choreographer, a professor, an activist and an arts leader. He danced with some of the world\u2019s most renowned ballet companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Alonzo King LINES Ballet and B\xe9jart Ballet in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was the co-founder and co-director of DNAWORKS, an arts-and-service organization based in Fort Worth, TX, dedicated to dialogue and healing through the arts. Among DNAWORKS\u2019 many projects is the interactive \u201cForth Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse.\u201d Thanks to an app with augmented-reality features, the tour allows audiences \u2014 whether in person or virtually \u2014 to visit four sites in Fort Worth associated with the December 11, 1921 lynching of Mr. Rouse.\xa0DNAWORKS also produced \u201cThe Borders Project,\u201d which uses a variety of creative performances and events to explore the histories of manmade borders and their effects on the human spirit and body. \u201cThe Borders Project\u201d has so far worked on the U.S./Mexico and Israel/Palestine borders.Adam was also awarded the NYU President\u2019s Service Award for his dance work with populations who struggle with heroin addiction.Before accepting his new post in Pittsburgh, he was the Associate Professor of Dance and Ballet at Texas Christian University, a tenured position he took on after having served as the inaugural Dance Department Chair at New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe.In this interview he describes the core beliefs and practices he believes will make ballet a rigorous, sustainable contemporary artform accessible and welcoming to all for generations to come.https://www.pbt.org/