Adam W. McKinney is a former member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, and Milwaukee Ballet Company. He has led dance work with diverse populations across the U.S. and in Benin, Canada, England, Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Palestine, Poland, Serbia, Spain, and South Africa. He served as a U.S. Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa through the U.S. State Department. Other awards of note include a Mid-America Arts Alliance Interchange grant for Fort Worth Lynching Tour, an augmented reality bike tour and dance performance around Fort Worth to remember a history of lynching; the NYU President’s Service Award for dance work with populations who struggle with heroin addiction; grants from the U.S. Embassy in Budapest and The Trust for Mutual Understanding to work with Roma youth in Hungary; a Jerome Foundation grant for Emerging Choreographers; and a U.S. Embassy in Accra grant to lead a video oral history project with a Jewish community in Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana. He was a School of American Ballet’s National Visiting Teaching Fellow, an opportunity to engage in important conversations around diversity and inclusion in classical ballet. Named one of the most influential African Americans in Milwaukee, WI by St. Vincent DePaul, McKinney is the Co-Director of DNAWORKS (www.dnaworks.org), an arts and service organization committed to healing through the arts and dialogue. He serves as President for Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice, a Fort Worth-based social justice organization. He holds a BFA in Dance Performance with high honors from Butler University and an MA in Dance Studies with concentrations in Race and Trauma theories from NYU-Gallatin.
Professor McKinney’s research sits at the intersection of dance studies and performance, anthropology, community, healing, social justice, and technology. The projects he leads work to bring communities closer together through the arts and dialogue. An ardent believer in the power of the arts to create sustainable change in communities.
DNAWORKS – www.dnaworks.org
Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice – www.tccpj.org
Transform 1012 N. Main Street – www.transform1012.org
Fort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse (2020), funded by Mid-America Arts Alliance and Asylum Arts, is an outdoor, augmented reality social justice dance performance that takes audience members on a bike, bus, and car tour to the important sites associated with the Fort Worth, TX racial terror lynching of Mr. Fred Rouse (d. December 11, 1921).https://www.dnaworks.org/fwlt
Select recent performances/international showcases: Atlanta, GA (2017), Boise, ID (2014), Charleston, WV (2016), Cotonou, Benin (2019), Fort Worth, TX (2020-2018), Kraków, Poland (2017), Lewistown, MT (2017), Milwaukee, WI (2020), Minneapolis, MN (2022) Saratoga Springs (2016), Santa Fe, NM (2016-2014), Sitka, AK (2019-2016)
HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film – https://www.dnaworks.org/hamapah-the-map-dance-on-film
“HaMapah/The Map. Navigating Intersections” book chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance (Oxford University PRess, 2022)
“SCAB: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse” Will Wilson & Adam W. McKinney (2022) SCAB: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse, Art Journal, 81:1, 7-13, DOI: 10.1080/00043249.2022.2040244
Promise Me You’ll Sing My Song for Bruce Wood Dance (Dallas, TX) https://www.dmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2020/12/why-bruce-woods-newest-dance-film-is-like-nothing-youve-ever-seen-before/
Shelter In Place
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/article/Critical-Race-Theory-exhibit-packs-powerful-punch-17134702.php
McKinney, A.W. with Brielle, A., Evans, S., Huckaby, S., Meek, V. (2022). Dialogues in Art: Beyond the Studio. University of Texas at Arlington. Arlington, TX. Online.
McKinney, A.W. (2022). HaMapah/The Map Dance/Film/Diagoue. The Conney Conference on Jewish Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, WI.
McKinney, A.W. (2021). Art & Memorial Activism. Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Boston, MA. Online.
McKinney, A.W. with Ahuvia, H. and Zaritt, J. (2021). Dance and Identity: An Intersectional Presentation and Panel. Baltimore JCC’s “Queer Jewish Arts Festival.” Baltimore, MD. Online.
McKinney, A.W. (2021). Dance and Social Justice: How to Navigate Histories of Oppression. Missouri Dance Organization. St. Louis, MO. Online.
McKinney, A.W. with Montoya, Y. Dance Research as Racial Healing. (2021). Liz Lerman’s “The Atlas of Creative Tools” Course. Arizona State University. Tempe, AZ. Online.
McKinney, A.W. with reed, m. and Verdin, M. (2021). HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film. Alternate Roots, Southern Soil: Collective Liberation in Harmony with the Land Conference. New Orleans, LA. Online.
McKinney, A. W. with Herrera, G. and Rozenthal, R. (2021). Pikuach Nefesh/פיקוח נפש: Community Memory and Working to Reconcile a 1921 Racial Terror Lynching during COVID-19 in Fort Worth, TX. American
Jewish University’s “Jewish Creativity During and Post COVID.” Los Angeles, CA.
McKinney, A.W. (2021). Unfolding Fort Worth History: Fred Rouse Memorial Project. Fort Worth Independent School District Multicultural Education Institute. Fort Worth, TX. Online.
McKinney, A.W. (2021). The Mr. Fred Rouse Memorial Project. Rotary Club of Fort Worth. Fort Worth, TX.
McKinney, A. W. (2020). Dancing Through A Door Of Return. Duke University, Durham, NC.
McKinney, A. W. (2020). Dancing Through A Door Of Return. Milwaukee Institute for Art & Design, Milwaukee, WI.
McKinney, A.W. (2020). Reimagining Contemporary Dance. U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. Jakarta, Indonesia. Online.
McKinney, A. W. (2018). HaMapah/The Map: Genealogical Diasporas, Jews and Jewishness in the Dance World Conference. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
McKinney, A.W. with Casey, E., Marshall, P., Hughes, B. and Walker, J. (2018). Moving Beyond The Battlefield: An Arts Collaboration Among Veterans and Artists, TCU Honoring Veterans Luncheon, TCU Veterans Services. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX.
McKinney, A. W. with Brown, B., Perkins, C., and Reed, A. (2018). Navigating White Spaces: Support for New Black Professors. International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference, Los Angeles, CA.
McKinney, A. W. (2017). Dance as Metaphor: Healing from Racism. Congress on Research in Dance/Dance Studies Organization Conference, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.
McKinney, A. W. (2017). Dance as Metaphor: Healing from Racism. International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference, Dallas, TX.
McKinney, A.W. with Ashkin, S. (2017). Site-Specific Dance Making. Confluence Conference at DOCH. School of Dance and Circus, Stockholm, Sweden.
McKinney, A. W. (2010). Dance and Feeling/Dance and Healing. NYU “Dance Across the Board” Graduate Student Conference, New York, NY.
McKinney, A. W. (2010). Social Justice Artists as Fieldworkers. NYU Forum on Citizenship and Applied Theater, New York, NY.
McKinney, A. W. (2006). Pretending to Be Something, Now Coming from Nothing: Dance Healing in Ghana and South Africa. International Peace Research Association Conference, Calgary, Ontario, Canada.
Select Awards
Project Row Houses Round 53 Artist: “The Curious Case of…Critical Race Theory?,” 2022
Asylum Arts Small Grant Awardee, 2022
TCU Dean’s Research and Creativity Award, 2022
Milwaukee Ballet II Choreographic Commission, Milwaukee, WI, 2020
Named Ballet Memphis Artistic Fellow, Memphis, TN, 2020
TCU Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies Activism in Action Awardee, Fort Worth, TX, 2019
Mid-America Arts Alliance Interchange Grant Awardee for Fort Worth Lynching Tour, Kansas City, MO, 2019
U.S. Embassy in Cotonou Art Specialist, Cotonou, Benin, 2019
Asylum Arts Fellow, Detroit, MI, 2018
Balet Dworski Cracovia Danza Choreographic Commissions, Kraków, Poland, 2017
Atlanta Ballet II and Dance Canvas Choreographic Commission, Atlanta, GA, 2016
School of American Ballet National Visiting Teacher Fellow, New York, NY, 2016
Co-founder & Co-director, DNAWORKS – www.dnaworks.org
President, Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice – www.tccpj.org
International Association of Blacks in Dance Member
Texas Center for Arts + Academics’ Advisory Council
Lake Arts Project – Board Member
Transform 1012 N. Main Street – Co-Secretary
