Arts & Entertainment
Trey chic
Boise-based dance outfit at Harmon Hall this weekend
Trey McIntyre Project
8 p.m. tonight; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday
Washington Performing Arts Society
at Sidney Harman Hall
610 F Street N.W.
Tickets $25-$75,
Wpas.org or shakespearetheatre.org/tickets
202-547-1122
Trey McIntyre (Photo courtesy of Trey McIntyre Project)
When the Trey McIntyre Project performs tonight in Washington, viewers, obviously, will have a sense of what they’re in for. But that’s not always the case in Boise, Idaho, where the company is based.
The 41-year-old Trey McIntyre chose the unlikely locale after a nationwide search for a host city and, all things considered, found Boise the best fit. His dancers have made a splash there by launching what they call “SpUrgans” — spontaneous urban performances — where McIntyre says, “we will go into an office or into a park, or into a restaurant, do our dance and get out,” basically, guerilla-style dance done with a boom-box for music and flying feet and swiveling hips, startling observers.
The whole point of a “SpUrban,” he says, is to surprise, to connect viscerally and unexpectedly, site-specific however, seeing the dance environment writ large — to go directly where people live and work in the community itself. His dancers also perform at games of the Idaho Stampede, the local NBA team, where they sold 300 tickets to one performance.
This weekend’s performance, of course, will be less out of the blue.
At Harman Hall, McIntyre promises a high-profile presentation of three works, two of them — “Ma Maison” (2008) and “The Sweeter End” (2011) — he choreographed to be performed to the recorded music he commissioned from the New Orleans jazz band, Preservation Hall, in two salutes to “the Big Easy,” a city he has grown to love.
The brightly colored “Ma Maison” costumes feature Mardi Gras-style skeleton costumes and the dance is inspired by ritual and celebration of both death and the afterlife. “The Sweeter End” premiered in New Orleans in February. The troupe will also perform “In Dreams” (2007), a darkly lyrical ballet he created for five dancers set to the music of Roy Orbison songs, including the eponymous “In Dreams,” a song McIntyre remembered from its use in the 1986 film by David Lynch, “Blue Velvet.”
McIntyre is famed already after a star-studded career of more than two decades as a choreographer, with his canon of more than 80 works of contemporary ballet, set to scores as varied as classical music (Beethoven and Chopin), rock ‘n’ roll (from the Beatles and Beck to Roy Orbison), folk (Peter, Paul and Mary) and jazz (Preservation Hall Jazz Band).
McIntyre says he never came out per se. His parents asked him about it when he was 14 and matter of factly started dating a boy. The Wichita, Kan., native established his dance career after leaving home at 17 for the Houston Ballet Company. By 19 he was hired, enjoying a long run there that lasted until 2008 by which time he had been working as a choreographer, his own dancing days ending in the mid-’90s.
McIntyre’s partner of eight years, 29-year-old John Michael Schert, met in New York and knew early on they’d form a company together. It began in 2005 as a summer touring company and was established in 2008 as a full-time company, now with 10 dancers.
The dancers — now five males (including Schert) and five females, salaried for 35 weeks a year and with full health benefits — are happily settled in Boise. Now in their third year there, they are also touring with upcoming concerts at Harman Hall in Washington tonight and Saturday, hosted by the Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS), and were scheduled to participate in a community “engagement” outreach with the Washington Ballet School, Maryland Youth Ballet and the Duke Ellington School for the Arts.
The company will also host tonight a free warm-up class and WPAS-sponsored performance for local schools at Harman Hall of excerpts from the three dances to be performed there tonight and Saturday.
Since arriving in Boise three years ago, the city has taken the Trey McIntyre Project to heart, bestowing a grant of $25,000 on the company, by far the city’s largest arts award ever, and naming the Project its first official cultural ambassador. Affiliated with Boise State University, which is renovating a 450-seat campus theater to make it suitable for dance, and housed for offices and studio space at Foothills School of Arts and Sciences, McIntyre and the company’s dancers have become virtual rock stars, recognizable wherever they go and showered with free gifts.
In 2005, the company began as a summer touring troupe, until landing on its feet full-time in Boise three years ago. Its now funded on a $1.5 million annual budget and boasts a blue ribbon national board and an advisory council with stars like Shirley MacLaine, Tony Award-winning actor Alan Cumming, and Lar Lubovich, legendary artistic director of the Lar Lubovich Dance Company.
Sports
New IOC policy bans trans women from Olympics
New regulation to be in effect at 2028 summer games in Los Angeles
The International Olympic Committee on Thursday announced it will not allow transgender women from competing in female events at the Olympics.
“For all disciplines on the Sports Program of an IOC event, including individual and team sports, eligibility for any Female Category is limited to biological females,” reads the new policy.
The policy states “eligibility for the Female Category is to be determined in the first instance by SRY Gene screening to detect the absence or presence of the SRY Gene.”
“On the basis of the scientific evidence, the IOC considers that the SRY (sex-determining Region Y) Gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced or will experience male sex development,” it reads. “Furthermore, the IOC considers that SRY Gene screening via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample is unintrusive compared to other possible methods. Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene permanently satisfy this policy’s eligibility criteria for competition in the Female Category.”
The policy states the test “will be a once-in-a-lifetime test” unless “there is reason to believe a negative reading is in error.”
The new regulation will be in place for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“I understand that this a very sensitive topic,” said IOC President Kirsty Coventry on Thursday in a video. “As a former athlete, I passionately believe in the rights of all Olympians to take part in fair competition.”
“The policy that we have announced is based on science and it has been led by medical experts with the best interests of athletes at its heart. The scientific evidence is very clear: male chromosomes give performance advances in sport that rely on strength, power, or endurance,” she added. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
(Video courtesy of the IOC)
Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter from New Zealand, in 2021 became the first trans woman to compete at the Olympics.
Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer, won a gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Khelif later sued JK Rowling and Elon Musk for cyberstalking after they questioned her gender identity.
Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, this year became the first openly trans athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics when he participated in Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy.
President Donald Trump in February 2025 issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee last July banned trans women from competing in female sporting events. Republican lawmakers have demanded the IOC ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
“I’m grateful the Olympics finally embraced the common sense policy that women’s sports are for women, not for men,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on X.
An IOC spokesperson on Thursday referred the Washington Blade to the press release that announced the new policy.
a&e features
Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Meet the Legends and Illuminators lighting new paths
The Torchbearers Awards are more than recognition—they are a continuation of legacy. They honor the quiet architects of progress in our community: those who organize, advocate, build, and protect, often without fanfare but always with purpose. Rooted in a belief in intentional recognition, this honor names those who carry our movements forward—those who make room for others, who remind us that change is both generational and generative. In a time marked by uncertainty and challenge, these leaders push forward with courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding opportunity and equity.
This year’s honorees reflect the full breadth of our community, spanning generations, backgrounds, identities, and industries. From Legends, with decades of leadership and having created pathways for others, to Illuminators, who are lighting new paths with creativity and innovation, each Torchbearer represents the power of intergenerational leadership and the strength found in our diversity. They are organizers, advocates, artists, policy leaders, healers, and changemakers whose lived experiences shape a shared vision for equity and liberation.
This award is our love letter to queer and trans women and nonbinary people who carry the flame when it would be easier to let it dim. To those who consistently show up, who use their voice and visibility and stand firm, often without recognition, so that others may live more freely and fully. The Torchbearers Awards celebrates not just what has been done, but the enduring spirit, responsibility, and collective care that ensure the work continues, and that the flame is always passed forward.
Co-Creators of the Torchbearers Awards: Shannon Alston, June Crenshaw, Heidi Ellis
Torchbearers Awards Advisory Board: Aditi Hardikar, Lesley Bryant, Jasmine Wilson-Bryant, Stephen Rutgers
ILLUMINATOR AWARDEES
- Representative Sharice Davids (she/her), (D, KS-03)
— U.S. House of Representatives - Greisa Martinez Rosas (she/her/ella)
— Executive Director, United We Dream - Paola Ramos (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Meagan A. Fitzgerald (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Jessica L. Lewis (she/her)
— Founder / Producer, Play Play DC - Savannah Wade (she/her)
— Founder, OAR Agency - Suhad Babaa (she/her)
— Filmmaker/ Former Executive Director of Just Vision - Ashlee Davis (she/her)
— Global Head of Inclusive Outcomes, Ancestry - Jazmine Hughes (she/her)
— Journalist and Former Editor at New York Times Magazine - Queen Adesuyi (she/they)
— Policy Advisor & Organizer, ReFrame Health & Justice - Michele Rayner, Esq. (she/her)
— Civil Rights Attorney, State Representative (Florida House of Representatives) - Gaby Vincent (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Jenny Nguyen (she/her)
— Founder & Owner, The Sports Bra - Denice Frohman (she/her)
— Independent Artist, Poet / Performer - Vida Rangel (she/her)
— Founder, Our Trans Capital - Roxanne Anderson (they/them)
— Executive Director, Our Space - Ann Marie Gothard (she/her)
— Co-Founder & President, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Diana Rodriques (she/her)
— Co-Founder & CEO, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Wendi Cooper (she/her)
— Founder / Executive Director, Transcending Women - Toya Matthews (she/her)
— City of San Antonio, Texas - Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Charity Blackwell (she/her)
— Poet, LGBTQ Advocate & Community Leader - Wilhelmina Indermaur (she/her)
— Director of Communications, Tyler Clementi Foundation - Em Chadwick (she/her)
— CMO, For Them & Autostraddle - Kylo Freeman (they/he)
— CEO, For Them & Autostraddle
LEGEND AWARDEES
- Sheila Alexander-Reid (she/her)
— Executive Director, PHL Diversity, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau - Cassandra Cantave Burton (she/her)
— Interim Director of Thought Leadership & Senior Research Advisor, AARP - leigh h. mosley (she/her)
— Photographer / Educator, PhotoFlo Photography - Jenn M. Jackson, PhD (they/them)
— Assistant Professor of Political Science; Author & Columnist, Syracuse University - Jordyn White (she/her)
— COO, Washington Prodigy / VP of Leadership Development & Research, HRC Foundation - AJ Hikes (they/them)
— Deputy Executive Director, ACLU - RaeShanda Lias (she/her)
— Digital Creator, RL Lockhart - Donna Payne-Hardy (she/her)
— Educator, EEO Specialist, Former Leader at the Human Rights Campaign - Courtney R. Snowden (she/her)
— Principal, Blueprint Strategy Group - Gaye Adegbalola (she/her)
— Musician & Activist, Musician / Inductee of the Blues Hall of Fame - Cheryl A. Head (she/her)
— Independent Author, Novelist (Crime Fiction) - Letitia Gomez (she/her)
— The American LGBTQ+ Museum, Formerly of Voto Latino - Lynne Brown (she/her)
— Publisher, Washington Blade - Shay Franco-Clausen (She/Her/Ella/Queen)
— Political Strategist and Organizer - Melissa L. Bradley (she/her)
— Founder & Managing Partner, New Majority Ventures - Meghann Burke (she/her)
— Executive Director, NWSL Players Association - Victoria Kirby York, MPA (she/they)
— Director of Public Policy & Programs, National Black Justice Coalition - Joli Angel Robinson (she/her)
— CEO, Center on Halsted - Jeannine Frisby LaRue (she/her)
— CEO, Moxie Strategies - Alice Wu (she/her)
— Film Director (Saving Face, The Half of It) / Screenwriter - Storme Webber (she/her)
— Interdisciplinary Artist / Educator, University of Washington - Kim Stone
— CEO of the Washington Spirit, Washington Spirit - Mickalene Thomas
— American Visual Artist, Mickalene Thomas Studio - Erika Lorshbough (any/they/she)
— Executive Director, interACT - J. Gia Loving (she/ella)
— Co-Executive Director, GSA Network
Celebrity News
D.C. goes gaga for Gaga
Bisexual icon brought ‘The Mayhem Ball’ tour to Washington this week
Lady Gaga this week took D.C. by storm.
The bisexual icon and LGBTQ rights champion brought “The Mayhem Ball” tour to Capital One Arena on Monday and Tuesday.
“Abracadabra,” “Paparazzi,” “Applause,” and “Bad Romance” are among the songs Lady Gaga performed during the 2 1/2-hour long concert. Lady Gaga also celebrated her many queer fans.
“You are precious to us,” she said on Tuesday night before she performed “Born This Way.”
‘No Kings’ protests set for D.C.
Border to border: modern slavery and human trafficking in refugee movements across East Africa
New IOC policy bans trans women from Olympics
Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Pa. House passes bill to codify marriage equality in state law
PHOTOS: Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th anniversary
‘Inherit the Wind’ isn’t about science vs. religion, but the right to think
Small is beautiful: subcompact SUVs
Polish court rules country must recognize same-sex marriages from EU states
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