Dianne McIntyre Group – In the Same Tongue
Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square
Cleveland, Ohio
November 15, 2025

By Steve Sucato

There was no place like home for Cleveland-native Dianne McIntyre on Saturday night. The 79-year-old dancer/choreographer’s eyes welled up with heartfelt appreciation when taking her bow during a lengthy and enthusiastic standing ovation for her latest dance work, In the Same Tongue. Performed by her eponymous dance group, the audience’s praise for her and the performers was well deserved.

The 80-minute lead-up to that standing ovation took the viewer on a selective autobiographical journey, choreographed by McIntyre, that focused on her relationship with music and the belief that dance is music moving, and that the two art forms speak the same language.

In the Same Tongue was set to an original score by composer Diedre Murray, consisting of avant-garde jazz and experimental music performed by the stellar quartet of Gerald Bazel (trumpet), Cleave Guyton Jr. (saxophone/woodwinds), Ron Mahdi (bass), and Reggie Nicholson (drums/percussion). It also included recorded voiceovers by McIntyre sprinkled throughout the work, and the dancers reciting poetry by the late, award-winning poet Ntozake Shange. 

McIntyre’s voicoveers spoke of her childhood and her belief that people needed to hear her dancing to fully see it, of her coming of age in the 1960s during a period of revolution, where she fell in love with the new avant-garde jazz music and faced prejudice at the clubs where she went to experience it, and how dance and music’s relationship informed her career. Those voiceovers provided thematic material for several of the work’s vignettes, as did Shange’s poetry, which added another dramatic element to the work’s 16 vignettes. 

Presented by DANCECleveland, the work began with dancer Brianna Rhodes, representing a young McIntyre performing a solo while reciting lines from Shange’s poem “I live in music.” As Rhodes’ body undulated in McIntyre’s slinky choreography, her arms swept in front and around her. She told of how music lived in her, like an orchestra, with sound emanating from her fingertips. “I live in music on C sharp street,” she said.  

Rhodes’ solo then gave way to the group dance “Like a Train,” another of the work’s sixteen vignettes. It was performed by In the Same Tongue’s cast of five company artists, which included Cleveland’s Nehemiah Spencer. McIntyre’s choreographic movement for the dancers blended Soul Train-era funk with modern and jazz dance styles that appeared to embody the music’s rhythms and intonations. 

Another vignette saw three of the musicians move from their rear-stage home to join the dancers at center stage. Like snake charmers, the musicians seemed to control the dancers, who matched the individual riffs of the improvised music with complementary dance moves. Later in the production, the roles of charmer and snake were reversed. 

The entire cast of company dancers, Rhodes, Spencer, Demetia Hopkins, Kyle H. Martin, and Kamryn Vaulx, wonderfully slipped into the groove of McIntyre’s choreography in vignettes that were predominantly upbeat and playful.  A few of its most memorable sections, however, contained darker subject matter.

In “What, What about?,” the full company, plus local guest dancers Mason Alexander, Sabrina Lindout, Jameelah Rahman, and DeAndrea Stone, engaged in combative dialogue, coming at one another spouting ‘What?’ and ‘What about?’ Those encounters grew increasingly hostile until several of them sank to the stage floor, cowering as others angrily stood over them, shouting those same words. 

“Scream,” the work’s darkest section, delved into themes of slavery and oppression. In it, four of the company dancers let out rage-filled screams and moved through choreography that had them dashing about the stage in fear and defiance. Most gripping was a repeated sequence in which the dancers, one by one, sprinted across the stage, only to be halted and pushed back by an unseen force until they capitulated.

It is unfortunate that local audiences don’t get to see more of McIntyre’s work. Her unique choreographic voice both challenges and entertains, speaking to both novice and seasoned dance-goers. In the Same Tongue, superbly spoke volumes.