At 70, professor, choreographer and artistic mentor Donald McKayle is not missing a beat

By Cynthia Haven
Photo: Stephen Swintek

Maggiano's on 16th Street, downtown Denver. It's the night before the internationally acclaimed Tantalus opens, and the dark, wood-paneled restaurant is packed. Enormous plates float by on mammoth platters, wafting trails of Mediterranean fragrances that compete with the haze of cigarette smoke. The noise is cacophonic.

Donald McKayle - one of the most honored and beloved members of UCI's faculty - is here, somewhere in the mob. The hostess has no reservation for "McKayle" - or any name like it. Searching for him, table by table, dodging the squadrons of platter-bearing waiters, is impossible.

Suddenly, McKayle appears and introduces himself. After more than half-a-century of dancing, he's lean, wiry and energetic at 70. The exuberance is stunning, almost unsettling. He needs every ounce of it he can get: The peripatetic professor is the artistic mentor and resident choreographer for the José Limón Dance Company, based in New York. He maintains ongoing relationships with other dance companies that have his works in their repertoire: the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, the Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theater.

He's bagged nearly a dozen Tony and Emmy awards and nominations, and literally scores of other honors and awards - the best that the dance world can bestow, including being named an "Irreplaceable Dance Treasure" by the Dance Heritage Coalition and the Library of Congress.

"Within the dance field, he is an eminence gris - one of the great teachers of legendary proportion, and one who really captures so many facets of humanity," says Jill Beck, dean of UCI's Claire Trevor School of the Arts.

McKayle is sitting at a lively table for two dozen people. Wedged among them is an Armenian astrologer who's lived in Calcutta, Wales and other far-flung locales; a Tantalus chorus member from Fergus Falls, Minnesota, who sings, acts, dances and plays the trumpet (McKayle introduces her as a "quadruple threat" for her many talents); and McKayle's wife of 35 years, Lea, also a dancer.

Since this night, Tantalus has become an international sensation. Benedict Nightingale of The Times of London called the freely adapted Greek mythological cycle an "extraordinary marathon" that left the audience "stunned, shattered and amazed." On this side of the Atlantic, The New Yorker's John Lahr called it "a challenging and exhausting emotional experience" and noted, "This lively production traps something that our sedate theatre and the timid existence it mirrors have lost: the awesome, terrible and thrilling monster of life's vitality."

And UCI's professor has come in for his share of kudos, putting the spotlight again on the school's exceptional dance program, under McKayle's artistic direction. McKayle holds the Balasaraswati/Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching; he is the first arts faculty member to receive UCI's Distinguished Faculty Research Award; and he has received the students' "Outstanding Professor Award." Last year, he was given the UCI Medal - the university's highest honor.

It is somewhat ironic that he became a tenured university professor with only two years of college under his belt.

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