Dancers with the Trey McIntyre Project (TMP) will give their final bow on the Morrison Center stage Saturday evening. Many of the dancers have earned rockstar status in the six years they’ve called Boise home.
In January, artistic director Trey McIntyre announced he would be ending his full time dance troupe, and instead focus on a new passion: film.
Idaho Statesman arts reporter Dana Oland began covering TMP nine years ago. Oland says that from the beginning, what TMP was doing was like nothing the Boise arts community had ever seen.
“One of the things that set them apart, from the beginning, was their willingness to break all the rules and reinvent the idea of a dance company," says Oland. "What [a dance company] should be, how it should be run, and how it should relate to its community.”
Oland says the organization’s habit of innovation made TMP famous. And in doing so, the company put Boise on the arts map. In a 2010 New York Times article, the paper wrote that Boise’s devotion to the dance company went above and beyond that of cities like San Francisco and New York.
Oland says TMP has earned that devotion by raising Boise’s bar of excellence when it comes to arts organizations.
“Great art can happen anywhere in the United States," says Oland. "It can happen right here in Boise, Idaho. And we have to set that as our goal. There’s a lot of great artists here, and they should feel free to go out and go for it.”
TMP's final Boise show includes a reprisal of “Mercury Half-Life,” a Queen-inspired performance, and the premiere of a new ballet. After the show, the dancers will pack their bags and head out on tour for the last time through the end of June.
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