April 12, 2025

DANCECleveland Announces 2025-2026 Performance Series Featuring Four American Modern Dance Companies

DANCECleveland Announces 2025-2026 Performance Series Featuring Four American Modern Dance Companies
CLEVELAND (April 12, 2025) – DANCECleveland proudly announces their 2025-2026 Performance Series, celebrating 69 years of bringing modern and contemporary dance to the audiences of Northeast Ohio. The season includes four incredible dance performances that will inspire audiences with their creativity and talent. With modern dance pioneers alongside new choreographic voices, the season features Northeast Ohio audience favorites and fresh new artists making their Ohio debuts—and all promise to showcase the breath and power of contemporary dance in America. The season begins with Community Dance Day at Playhouse Square on July 26, featuring a dozen free movement classes for all ages and abilities in a variety of styles as well as the Northeast Ohio Student Showcase which brings together studio and youth dancers from across the region together on the stage of the Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square. This summer, DANCECleveland subscribers will have the opportunity to take a summer road trip to the beautiful Chautauqua Institute in New York to see the Houston Ballet with the Chautauqua Symphony. The DANCECleveland series at Playhouse Square kicks off October 11 with MOMIX and their innovative adaptation of Alice and continues November 15 with Cleveland legend and world-renowned choreographer Dianne McIntyre’s In The Same Tongue. DANCECleveland will ring in the new year January 31 with a 100th anniversary celebration of the great Martha Graham Dance Company and close the season April 25 with the Ohio premiere of YY Dance Company, a unique, high-energy fusion of contemporary dance and traditional Chinese movement. This season, DANCECleveland embraces its recently updated mission “to be a national model for how a presenting organization serves its community, leveraging the world’s best modern and contemporary dance to inspire and educate audiences, local dancers, and community members.” In addition to performances, the season features opportunities for local dancers to take free master classes with visiting artists as well as activities throughout Northeast Ohio including educational residencies at local universities, workshops at local senior centers and public schools, artist talks, pre- and post-show activities, performance opportunities and more. Sarah Sumbrum, Artistic Director of DANCECleveland, reflects, “This season features four amazing American modern dance companies, each with their own unique voice that showcase the variety of American dance today. From classic choreographers like Martha Graham who can be thought as the mother of modern dance in our nation, to new female choreographic voices like Yue Yin, a proud immigrant from China who has been turning heads in NYC with her creative and innovate approach to her blending of dance forms, this season really shows how dance in America has grown and evolved and the power it has to challenge adversity and help create a beautiful world around us.”

DANCECleveland’s 2025-2026 performance season at a glance:
Community Dance Day and the Northeast Ohio Student Showcase Saturday, July 26, 2025 Classes: 10:00 am to 2:00 pm Showcase Performance: 3:00 pm Across the playhouse Square District MOMIX: Alice, Saturday, October 11, 2025, at 7:30 pm in the Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square.
Dianne McIntyre: In The Same Tongue, Saturday, November 15, 2026, at 7:30 pm in the Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square. Martha Graham Dance Company, Saturday, January 31, 2026, at 7:30 pm in the KeyBank State Theatre at Playhouse Square. Presented in collaboration with Playhouse Square. YY Dance Company, Saturday, April 25, 2026, at 7:30 pm in the Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square.
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND TICKETS: Season subscription packages, starting at $125, are on sale now. Call 216-991-9000 or visit www.dancecleveland.org to order. Individual performance tickets starting at $10 will be available beginning July 1, 2025. Discounted tickets for groups of 10 or more are also available.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Audience favorite MOMIX returns to Playhouse Square with their creative production of Alice! MOMIX combines the physical beaty of movement and the human body, costumes, lighting, shadows and props to create an imaginative world based on the story of Alice in Wonderland. Led by Artistic Director Moses Pendleton, MOMIX is known for its unique style of acrobatic dance and visual illusion, and their Cleveland performances regularly sell out. Alice promises to enchant audiences with its magic, whimsy and inventiveness. Join this dazzling company on a mind-bending adventure, as Alice encounters time-honored characters including the undulating Caterpillar, a lobster quadrille, frenzied White Rabbits, a mad Queen of Hearts, and a variety of other surprises. Filled with visual splendor and startling creative movement, Alice reveals that nothing in MOMIX’s world is as it seems! *This performance is recommended for ages 8 and up.
MOMIX has worked in film and television, recently appearing in a national commercial for Hanes underwear and a Target ad that premiered during the airing of the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards. With performances on PBS’s “Dance in America” series, France’s Antenne II, and Italian RAI television, the company’s repertory has been broadcast to 55 countries. Joining the Montreal Symphony in the Rhombus Media film of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, winner of an International Emmy for Best Performing Arts Special, the company’s performance was distributed on laser disc by Decca Records. MOMIX was also featured in IMAGINE, one of the first 3-D IMAX films to be released in IMAX theaters world-wide. MOMIX dancers Cynthia Quinn and Karl Baumann, under Moses Pendleton’s direction, played the role of “Bluey” in the feature film FX2; and White Widow, co-choreographed by Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn, was featured in Robert Altman’s movie,The Company. Participating in the Homage a Picasso in Paris, MOMIX was also selected to represent the US at the European Cultural Center at Delphi.
With the support of the Scottsdale Cultural Council Scottsdale Center for the Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona, Mr. Pendleton created Bat Habits to celebrate the opening of the San Francisco Giants’ new spring training park in Scottsdale. MOMIX has been commissioned by corporations such as Fiat and Mercedes Benz, performing at Fiat’s month long 100th Anniversary Celebration in Torino, Italy and Mercedes Benz’s International Auto Show in Frankfurt, Germany. With nothing more than light, shadow, props, and the human body, MOMIX has astonished audiences on five continents for more than 40 years.

Learn more about the company: www.momix.com

In November, DANCECleveland presents In the Same Tongue by Dianne McIntyre, a nationally acclaimed choreographer and Cleveland native. In The Same Tongue unites a vigorous company of dancers and musicians to explore how dance and music “speak” to each other in this vibrant, full-length movement, sound, and language-based work. With live, original music by celebrated jazz composer Diedre Murray, In the Same Tongue reveals how language creates worlds of beauty, alienation, harmony, tension, and peace. The work highlights the poetry of Obie-winning playwright Ntozake Shange to create a tapestry of woven elements, staged through a lens of Black culture. The New York Times called the work “one of the best dance performances of 2024.” The performance features talented dancers from across the nation including four Northeast Ohio dancers.
McIntyre is a native of Cleveland who worked in New York City for many years before moving back to Cleveland in 2003. She began her dance studies in Ohio with Elaine Gibbs Redmond and Virginia Dryansky, Charlotte Honda at John Adams High School as well as Joan Hartshorne at Karamu House and performed with the Karamu Dancers under Joan’s direction. From 1957 – 1975, McIntyre studied as a scholarship student with Cleveland Modern Dance Association, now DANCECleveland. Since the 1970’s, McIntyre has choreographed various plays and dance works at a variety of Cleveland Arts organizations including Karamu House, Cleveland Playhouse, Dancing Wheels, Cleveland State University, Dancing Wheels, GroundWorks Dance Theater, Ohio Contemporary Ballet, and Cleveland School of the Arts. In 2006 she was awarded a Cleveland Arts Prize.
On a national level, Dianne has been recognized by a wide variety of renowned dance institutions and her choreography has spanned some of the most notable modern dance companies in America. Dianne McIntyre is a 2022 Dance Magazine Award Honoree and recipient of a 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Martha Hill Dance Fund. Known for her concert dance work with celebrated artists on the cutting edge of music primarily in the Black spectrum, she also choreographs for theatre, film and opera. Her work appears in the 2022 opera Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage and Ricky Ian Gordon for Lincoln Center Theater and broadcast on PBS. She has choreographed for numerous companies including Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as well as her own companies - most notably, Sounds in Motion. The company/school was a vital institution in Harlem where artists met, collaborated and were nurtured at the studio. The Sounds in Motion company toured internationally. McIntyre's film credits include Beloved (from Toni Morrison's novel) and Miss Evers' Boys garnering her an Emmy nomination. Other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Dance/USA Honor Award, a United States Artists Doris Duke Fellowship, National Black Theatre Teer Pioneer Award, Def Dance Jam Community Butterfly Award, American Dance Festival Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award/College of Arts and Sciences the Ohio State University, two Audelcos, three Bessies and two Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degrees (for SUNY Purchase and Cleveland State University). Dianne McIntyre also enjoys developing dance driven dramas from her interviews about real life stories. Two of these are I Could Stop on a Dime and Get Ten Cents Change (her father's stories) and Open the Door, Virginia! (1950s civil rights stories). McIntyre’s mentors include Elaine Gibbs Redmond, Gus Solomons, Jr., Louise Roberts, Vera Blaine, Helen Alkire and Richard Davis. Dianne McIntyre is the co-director, with Risa Steinberg of the Jacob's Pillow Hicks Choreography Fellows Program.
Learn more about the artist: www.diannemcintyre.com.

Martha Graham Dance Company has been called “one of the great companies of the world” by The New York Times. Founded in 1926 by modern dance pioneer Martha Graham, the Company celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2026.
The program will feature Graham classics like Lamentation and Appalachian Spring, set to the music of Aaron Copeland, alongside new works by today’s leading choreographers, such as Jamar Roberts’ We the People, set to a commissioned score by Grammy-winning composer and folk musician Rhiannon Giddens. In her lifetime, Graham choreographed 181 works over 70 years. Today, the Martha Graham Dance Company features some of the best dancers in the world. One of America’s most iconic modern dance companies, the performance marks their first Cleveland performance in 19 years. Cleveland audiences will recognize some familiar faces from the 2024-25 season: Lloyd Knight, whose solo work The Drama was co-commissioned and presented by DANCECleveland in February; Leslie Andrea Williams, who performed with Hélène Simoneau Danse; and Marzia Memoli, who performed with Twyla Tharp Dance.
Martha Graham is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, alongside Picasso, James Joyce, Stravinsky, and Frank Lloyd Wright. TIME magazine named Martha Graham “Dancer of the Century,” and People magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.” As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. Graham created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Her approach to dance and theater revolutionized the art form and her innovative physical vocabulary has irrevocably influenced dance worldwide. Martha Graham’s extraordinary artistic legacy has often been compared to Stanislavsky’s Art Theatre in Moscow and the Grand Kabuki Theatre of Japan, for its diversity and breadth. Her legacy is perpetuated in performance by the Martha Graham Dance Company and Graham 2, and by the students of the Martha Graham School. In 1926, Martha Graham founded her dance company and school, living and working out of a tiny Carnegie Hall studio in midtown Manhattan. In developing her technique, Martha Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with the most elemental movements of contraction and release. Using these principles as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would “increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.” Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposed the depths of human emotion through movements that were sharp, angular, jagged, and direct. The dance world was forever altered by Martha Graham’s vision, which has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for generations of dance and theatre artists. Martha Graham’s uniquely American vision and creative genius earned her numerous honors and awards, such as The Laurel Leaf of the American Composers Alliance in 1959 for her service to music. Her colleagues in theater, the members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One, voted her the recipient of the 1986 Local One Centennial Award for Dance, not to be awarded for another 100 years. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford bestowed upon Martha Graham the United States’ highest civilian honor, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, and declared her a “national treasure,” making her the first dancer and choreographer to receive this honor. Another Presidential honor was awarded Martha Graham in 1985 when President Ronald Reagan designated her among the first recipients of the United States National Medal of Arts.
Learn more about the company: https://marthagraham.org
Making their Ohio debut, YY Dance Company will bring an evening of four contemporary dance works that showcase the beauty, power, and emotionally charged movement for which Yue Yin has gained recognition. Now based in NYC, Yue began her training in Chinese classical dance in China and created her own trademark choreographic style, FoCo Technique, fusing elements of Chinese classical dance, ballet, folk dance, and cutting-edge contemporary movement. This new choreographic voice that is artistically engaging, culturally and socially conscious, and original in DANCECleveland’s season closing performance.

Yue Yin completed her MFA in dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2008. In 2018, she founded YYDC. Yue Yin was the recipient of the 2021 Harkness Promise Award. This prestigious award recognizes her innovation in choreography and education. She was the winner of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2015 International Commissioning Project, winner of the 2015 BalletX Choreographic Fellowship, and winner of Northwest Dance Project’s 5th Annual Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Competition in 2013. Yin’s work has been commissioned from acclaimed organizations such as Gibney Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Oregon Ballet Theater, NW Dance Project, BalletMet, Boston Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Limon Dance Company, Alberta Ballet, Balletto Teatro di Torino, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Juilliard School for Dance, USC Kaufman School of Dance, Tisch School of The Arts, Princeton and more.
Learn more about the company: https://yydc.org/about
About Community Dance Day and the Northeast Ohio Student Showcase
A fun-filled day of dance for the whole family to enjoy! Community members can take part in one or more of a dozen free classes for all ages and abilities in dance styles including Contemporary, Ballet, African Drum & Dance, Hip Hop, Flamenco, Jazz, Stepping, Pilates, and more. Community Dance Day is a wonderful time to try out the art form of dance and its many styles and to celebrate movement together. No prior dance experience is required. Community members can sign up for one dance experience or take class all day long, then enjoy a showcase performance by some of Northeast Ohio’s most talented dance students in Playhouse Square’s Allen Theatre. Tickets and registration are free, but prior registration is encouraged. Applications are currently open for youth dance schools and groups to apply to be part of the Northeast Ohio Student Showcase. More information and link to register are found at: https://www.dancecleveland.org/events/2025/07/26/community-dance-day-2025-a-full-day-of-free-dance-and-movement-classes-and-more
About DANCECleveland: DANCECleveland, a Cleveland, Ohio-based nonprofit, is one of only a handful of presenters in the nation dedicated solely to the presentation of modern and contemporary dance. The centerpiece of the organization’s programming is its annual performance series. Performances are surrounded by an array of educational outreach events including artist-run classes, residency programs, student matinees, pre-performance lectures and post-performance Q&A sessions, designed both to break artistic boundaries and provide community access to the dance aesthetic and dance luminaries that DANCECleveland brings to Northeast Ohio. Learn more at http://www.dancecleveland.org.
ELECTRONIC PHOTOS AVAILABLE FROM SARAH SUMBRUM AT 216-991-9000 OR EMAIL: sarah@dancecleveland.org.
For more information on DANCECleveland’s presenting partner, visit:
playhousesquare.org
DANCECleveland is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.
The Ohio Arts Council helped fund DANCECleveland with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.
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