Trey McIntyre says when word spreadlast month that he was shifting focus from his Boise-based dance company to filmmaking, people generally met the news with sadness.
“And that’s a great thing – to actually have something to mourn in this process, that makes me feel really proud that we achieved something great,” says the internationally-known choreographer who brought his dance companyto Boise six years ago.
But McIntyre insists it’s time to move on to his next creative chapter. The Kansas native says he’s working on two documentaries and plans to also write a screenplay. McIntyre became interested in film 20 years ago while dancing in Houston. Friends in the dance world encouraged him to pursue it as a creative outlet.
“But what I had to say was about dance," McIntyre says.
The choice has served him well. McIntyre’s ballets have been performed all over the country. He's known globally in the world of ballet. But McIntyre says what he’s had to say most recently had less and less to do with dance. He’s been considering the move to film for several years.
“I feel like we’ve achieved what we set out to do,” he says. “We’ve reached audiences, we’ve served dancers, we’ve served employees in this community, we’ve served communities. We’re doing this from a place of great power in that we’ve done it. It’s a time to look at this particular project and we can put that on a shelf and really feel good about it…and now move into this next phase with that same kind of creativity and excitement.”
McIntyre says he wanted to make pursue his passion for film before his dance company got stale. He calls it getting stuck in “an institutional mode.”
“I think that’s where a lot of arts organizations go,” he says. “And it’s not really my bag and I don’t really understand it, big picture. In fact, I think some of the legacies of some great choreographers have been destroyed by this holding on to it, and trying to make it into a fixed entity. Dance in particular is an ephemeral form. It’s here at this moment and gone the next. And I think the right thing to with that is embrace it.”
The Trey McIntyre Project will perform its final Boise show March 15. After that, it’s full speed ahead with film projects. One of the documentaries, “Ma Maison,” is about McIntyre’s two-ballet collaboration with the New Orleans-based Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The other is a film documenting the first 10 years of the dance company. McIntyre says his screenplay is for a feature narrative.
He says as he’s explained his change of heart, that sadness people have initially felt has given way to something else.
“With very few exceptions, it’s always followed up with a great understanding [of] what this moment is about,” says McIntyre.
Copyright 2014 Boise State Public Radio