Pittsburgh Ballet's new artistic director returning to familiar spaces

Adam McKinney will take over as artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in March, but he says there are many ways in which he already feels at home in the role and in the city.

McKinney, 46, grew up in Milwaukee but often visited Pittsburgh, where his late father, Gerald McKinney, was an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board.

“Pittsburgh reminds me of my working-class heritage, certainly from my father’s position at the NLRB,” he said. “Thinking about unions and thinking about the robust arts scene in Pittsburgh, there are so many connections already to my life. PBT has been on my radar for two and a half decades.”

While visiting Pittsburgh during his mid-20s, McKinney took a class with the company and later taught in its school.

McKinney most recently was an associate professor of dance in ballet in the School for Classical and Contemporary Dance at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Before that, he was the inaugural dance department chair at the New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe.

He comes to PBT as the seventh artistic director in the company’s 54-year history and will be the first artistic director of color. He succeeds Susan Jaffe, who served from 2020 to 2022 and is now artistic director at American Ballet Theatre in New York City.

“We believe Adam will be a transformative artistic director for our organization and leader in our community and throughout the world of ballet,” said Mary McKinney Flaherty, PBT president and board chair.

McKinney said part of his mission will be to balance classical and contemporary programming to appeal to a diverse audience, including younger people. The conversation includes ways of not only retaining current audiences but also bringing in new audiences.

“As participants and leaders in the field of ballet, we are also asking important questions about who we are, who we want to be and where we want to go. The company and I have paralleling and aligned values,” he said.

Classical and contemporary

McKinney said he will work to build on PBT’s legacy of presenting a classical ballet repertoire, while also introducing new contemporary works and choreographers to Pittsburgh audiences.

“As a leader, as an educator, as an artist, my interest is to demystify ballet,” he said. “My role as artistic director is to curate programming that develops ways for audiences to understand the form of ballet and dance, certainly, and also what it can do for us in society.

“One of the ways I will embark on this journey is by asking Pittsburgh what we need. I have my own ideas around the curation of work, and I want to make sure that my choices are informed by the people around me,” he said.

McKinney has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance performance with a focus on classical ballet from Butler University in Indianapolis and a Master of Arts in dance studies with concentrations in race and trauma theories from the Gallatin School at New York University.

He has danced with preeminent dance companies, including the New York-based Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet in San Francisco, Milwaukee Ballet Company and Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland.

With a commitment to making ballet and dance accessible to all people, McKinney has led dance work with diverse populations across North America, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He served as a United States Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa through the State Department.

“He brings with him incredible creativity, energy and kindness, and his leadership is going to have such a positive impact at PBT and in Pittsburgh,” said Kathryn Gigler, PBT acting executive director.

McKinney said he and his husband, Daniel Banks, who is a theater director, are eager to become a part of Pittsburgh’s creative community.

“That’s another reason we’re excited to move to Pittsburgh, for all of the good work being done there in theater,” he said. “We are looking forward to settling in and forming relationships and being a part of the art scene there.”