Mr. Tyson’s career reflects work and collaboration with a stellar roster of dancers, choreographers, composers and directors in both live and recorded performances.
Mr. Tyson has performed as a soloist in Osaka, Japan in 1995. He was a guest artist with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, A Tribute to Judith Jamison 10th Anniversary Celebration /New York, NY in 1999 and Ko-Thi Dance Company, Art In Motion /Harvest in 2000. Mr. Tyson performed with Allyson Green Dance, In The Name /New York, NY in 2001. He is also a former member of Complexions Dance Company, an exciting young company under the creative direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, two fellow Ailey alumni.
He has performed several works by Mr. Rhoden, notably Interiors at Symphony Space /New York, NY in 1995 and Cake at the Joyce Theater /New York, NY in 1997. In 2005, he performed as a guest artist at Long Island University Faculty Dance Concert. For the past several years Mr. Tyson has combined a full teaching schedule with a successful range of international performances across Europe and Asia.
He appeared in a feature article in the March 2005 edition of Dancer Magazine: An Interview with Professor Dancer Andre Tyson by Yvonne Houston. Mr. Tyson is firm in his belief that these experiences nourish him as an artist and an educator. They color and heighten not only his life as a creator and performer, but like a pebble in a pond, ripple outward to influence and enhance the lives of his students and the dance community.
Mr. Tyson was on sabbatical from The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts Department of Dance in the fall of 2005. He was in residencies at Long Island University and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater / Joan Weill Center for Dance doing choreographic workshops and also inDance Magazine’s College Guide, College Dance=New Directions. Mr. Tyson completed the creation of his 2005 sabbatical project a solo performance and collaborative choreographic retrospective concert:
Recriminations & Recovery: Loose Confessions of an Ex Altar Boy
Recriminations & Recovery: Loose Confessions of an Ex Altar Boy premiered at UW-Milwaukee PSOA Summer Dance Concert 2006. Mr. Tyson tackles the theme of Justice head on in his new work, Recriminations & Recovery: Loose Confessions of an Ex Altar Boy. He opens a dialogue with the audience on the theme of justice as it relates to identity, race and sexuality, art and life. Recriminations & Recovery: Loose Confessions of an Ex Altar Boy a politically incorrect meditation on justice is filtered through the lens of Mr. Tyson’s personal experience as a gay man, an artist and a person of color. Mr. Tyson considers the dance to be a movement essay that translates aspects of his personal, professional and creative life into visceral dance expressions. He believes his background, upbringing, sexuality and heritage color and helps shape his sensibilities as an artist. Yet his art, ethnicity and sexuality are almost always measured against the standards of a heterosexual, Eurocentric cultural universe. In Recriminations & Recovery: Loose Confessions of an Ex Altar Boy, Mr. Tyson exclaims: my eyes are opened, vision enhanced and altered by societal and global forces to pose questions, exorcise demons, quell an internal rebellion and answer an inner call. Recriminations & Recovery: Loose Confessions of an Ex Altar Boy makes ambitious use of original music, lighting, text and graphic displays, and costume and scenic design. Local collaborators include Cedric Gardner and his FUEL hip hop dance company and City Ballet Theatre Dance Company. Everyday, Mr. Tyson remains committed to sharing his talents and giving back to the art form he loves and that has been such a force for good in his life and the lives of so many others. Most recently, Mr. Tyson performed in Layla Means Night choreography by CalArts colleague Rosanna Gamson at RedCat Los Angeles, CA in 2011.