Duane Cyrus Director, School of Dance

Duane Cyrus is a professor at the University of Arizona and the director of the School of Dance.

He is a Bessie Award-nominated performing and creative artist whose work is focused on the confluence of questions and ideas that come from positioning moving bodies in conceptual environments.

He is a two-time North Carolina Arts Council Choreography Fellow and his work is informed by research into Black American and Caribbean history and culture. As a performer, Cyrus has danced with both the Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey Dance Companies and regularly works in a range of other genres and styles including concert dance, musical theatre, contemporary art, and drama.

 

His creative work is iterative and devised to engage a range of communities by being accessible, touchable, and relevant. With a kaleidoscopic background in the arts, Cyrus’ choreography, curations, and directed works fluidly negotiate the physical capabilities and possibilities of the human body in movement and the power of imagery.

He is also a founding member of Theatre of Movement, a performing and visual art collective that produces transdisciplinary collaborations and curations with performers, photographers, filmmakers, poets, and musicians. Theatre of Movement seeks to disrupt and re-envision how artists develop, produce and present their work––toward a more equitable distribution of access, opportunity, and resource for artists and the audiences they engage.