Significant Performances and Accomplishments
DBDT choreographs its first dance production of “Porgy & Bess” in 1983 accompanied by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and noted opera star Donnie Albert.
Co-Founder of The Dallas Morning News Dance Festival
DBDT Board commits to hiring dancers on 11 month full time dance contracts in 1988
DBDT participates in Texas Festival at the Kennedy Center (one of two representatives from City of Dallas; co-participant with The Dallas Symphony) in 1991
DBDT conducts its first international tour in 1991 to South America (Lime, Peru) sponsored by SAGA
DBDT featured as guest performer for 1991 Arst Festival held in 10 cities throughout Italy and Sicily
Performed 29 day (4 city – Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine and San Francisco) 1991 West Coast Tour for “Black Choreographers’ Moving Toward the 21st Century Festival”
Represented the U.S.A. at EXPO ’92 in Seville, Spain (six performances)
International tour (5 cities) to Great Britain for 1993 Essex Summer Festival of Music and Dance with final performances in London, England
DBDT receives National Endowment for the Arts Advancement Grant to support Long Range Planning
DBDT performs for 1996 Olympic Arts Festival in Atlanta, Georgia and is the first and only Texas arts group ever to be invited to be an Olympic Cultural Olympiad participant.
DBDT opens the Lincoln Center’s 1997 Out-of-Doors Festival Dance Series in New York City.
DBDT hosts three Annual Conferences of the International Association of Blacks in Dance in Dallas including the 10th Anniversary conference in 1997.
DBDT Founder and company recognized in 1997 in New York during "Dance Women: Living Legend Series" with performances in Aaron Davis Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center
DBDT is commissioned by the Gershwin Family to create a new dance production of America’s greatest opera “Porgy and Bess” set to the jazz music of the legendary Miles Davis
DBDT receives 1998 invitation from South Africa’s Minister of Arts, Culture and Sports to be the featured guest for South Aftrica’s largest cultural festival and to perform educational programs in the cities of Johannesburg, Capetown, Pretoria and Soweto.
DBDT holds world premier of “Miles Davis-Porgy and Bess” at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in September 1998
DBDT featured as a U.S. dance company and guest artist for the 1999 Bermuda Festival, Ltd. In Hamilton, Bermuda
DBDT performs as headline artist for the 2000 Harare International Festival of the Arts in Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa
DBDT featured as guest performers at the Sixth International Ballet Festival in Miami, Florida
DBDT featured as guest performer at the 226th birthday celebration for America held by U.S. Ambassador Richard J. Egan on July 4, 2002 in Dublin, Ireland
DBDT is featured as guest performer for Austria’s First Annual Black Dance Festival held at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, Austria November 8-9, 2002
DBDT conducted dance education programs for over 1,000,000 youth during its first 25 years
DBDT secures financing for acquisition of the former Moorland YMCA building in Dallas’ downtown arts district to be used as its permanent home base for artistic/rehearsal space, administrative operations and training school
Dallas Black Dance Theatre is awarded $3.26 by voters in the City of Dallas’ May 2003 Bond Election for the renovation of the former Moorland YMCA building
DBDT is the 2003 beneficiary of American Airlines Community Concert and presents Gladys Knight in a gala benefit concert at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony center on June 30, 2003
Dallas Black Dance Theater collaborated with The New York Baroque Dance Company and the Dallas Bach Society in the creation of a new dance production – “Soiree Baroque en Haiti” – a salute to the 200th Anniversary of Haiti’s independence presented in New York and in Dallas in November 2003
DBDT is the featured guest performer for the second year at the Annual Balck Dance Festival in Vienna, Austria in November 2003
DBDT presented as featured performer in August 2004 Out-of-Doors Festival by the Lincoln Center in New York City
DBDT Commissioned in August 2004 by the President’s Committee on the Arts and humanities to create a new work based on the inspiration of themes and ideas from the sculpture and architecture of The Nasher Sculpture Center
In 2004, DBDT raises $1.3 million in six months and pays off mortgage on former Moorland YMCA building
DBDT’s new permanent home included in 2005 expansion of Dallas’ downtown Arts District
In 2005 DBDT donates former Moorland YMCA building to City of Dallas as first city-owned facility for dance
DBDT launches 30th Anniversary season in June 2006 performance Primary Movements – a groundbreaking collaboration of music and dance featuring DBDT with an original dance work and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra performing an original score composed by Johathan Baily Holland
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