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.
History
Julius’ Bar ‘sip-in’ laid groundwork for Stonewall
Tuesday marked 60 years since four gay activists held protest
While Stonewall is widely considered the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S., a lesser-known protest inside a Greenwich Village bar three years earlier helped lay critical groundwork for what would follow.
Tuesday marked 60 years since the Julius’ Bar “sip in.”
On April 21, 1966, four gay rights activists — Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, and later Randy Wicker — walked into Julius’ Bar and staged what would become known as a “sip-in” to challenge state liquor regulations on serving alcoholic beverages to gay men — with a drink.
Modeled after the sit-ins that challenged racial segregation across the American South, the protest was designed to confront discriminatory practices targeting LGBTQ patrons in public spaces.
At the time, the Mattachine Society — one of the country’s earliest gay rights groups — was actively pushing back against policies enforced by the New York State Liquor Authority. One of those policies could have resulted in the loss of liquor licenses for serving known or suspected gay men and lesbians. The participants had visited multiple establishments, openly identified themselves as homosexual, and requested a drink — with the anticipation of being denied.
Their final stop was Julius’, where reporters and a photographer had gathered to document the moment. When Leitsch declared their identity, the bartender covered their glasses and refused service, reportedly saying, “I think it’s against the law.” The next day, the New York Times ran a story with the headline, “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars,” cementing the moment in the public record.
Though initially framed with disrespect — the term “sip-in” itself was coined as a play on civil rights protests — the action marked a turning point. It brought national attention to the systemic discrimination LGBTQ people faced and helped catalyze changes in how liquor laws were enforced. In the years that followed, the protest contributed to the emergence of licensed, more openly gay-friendly bars, which became central social and organizing spaces for LGBTQ communities.
The Washington Blade originally covered when the bar was officially added to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
Today, historians and advocates increasingly recognize the “sip-in” as a key pre-Stonewall milestone. According to the New York City LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, the protest not only increased visibility of the early LGBTQ rights movement but also exposed widespread surveillance and entrapment tactics used against the community.
Marking the 60th anniversary of the event, commemorations have taken place in New York and across the country. Reflecting on its enduring legacy, Amanda Davis, executive director of the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, spoke about the event.
“Julius’ Bar is a place you can visit and viscerally connect with history,” said Davis. “We’re thrilled to have solidarity locations across the country join us in commemorating the ‘sip-in’’s 60th anniversary and the queer community’s First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.”
For current stewards of the historic bar, the responsibility of preserving that legacy remains front of mind.
“It’s a privilege and a responsibility to be the steward of a place so important to American and LGBTQ history,” said current owner of Julius’ Bar, Helen Buford. “The events of the 1966 Sip-In here at Julius’ resonated across the country and inspired countless others to stand proud for their rights.”
The timing couldn’t have come at a more important moment, Kymn Goldstein, executive director of the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, explained.
“At a time when our community faces renewed challenges, coming together in resilience and solidarity reminds us of the power in our collective resistance,” Goldstein said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, an organization dedicated to defending rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, is currently tracking 519 anti-LGBTQ bills across the U.S. The majority are targeted at restricting transgender rights — particularly related to gender-affirming care, sports participation, and the use of public bathrooms.
Some additional groups and bars that held their own “sip-in” as solidarity events to uplift this historic milestone are from across the country include:
Alice Austen House at Steiny’s Pub, Staten Island, N.Y.
Bellows Falls Pride Committee at PK’s Irish Pub, Bellows Falls, Vt.
Brick Road Coffee, Mesa, Ariz.
Brick Road Coffee, Tempe, Ariz.
Dick Leitsch’s Family at Old Louisville Brewery, Louisville, Ky.
The Faerie Playhouse & LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana at Le Cabaret, New Orleans
Harlem Pride & John Reddick at L’Artista Italian Kitchen & Bar, New York
JOYR!DE KiKi at Loafers Cocktail Bar, New York
Matthew Lawrence & Jason Tranchida / Headmaster at Deadbeats Bar, Providence, R.I.
Mazer Lesbian Archives at Alana’s Coffee, Los Angeles
New Hope Celebrates at The Club Room, New Hope, Pa.
Queer Memory Project at the University of Evansville Multicultural Student Commons / Ridgway University Center, Evansville, Ind.
Sandy Jack’s Bar, Brooklyn, N.Y.
St. Louis LGBT History Project at Just John Club, St. Louis
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch was held at Salamander Washington DC on Sunday, April 19. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) was presented with the Allyship Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The umbrella LGBTQ sports organization Team D.C. held its annual Night of Champions Gala at the Georgetown Marriott on Saturday, April 18. Team D.C. presented scholarships to local student athletes and presented awards to Adam Peck, Manuel Montelongo (a.k.a. Mari Con Carne), Dr. Sara Varghai, Dan Martin and the Centaur Motorcycle Club. Sean Bartel was posthumously honored with the Most Valuable Person Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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