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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
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Trey McIntyre founded the Trey McIntyre Project in 2005 as a part-time touring dance company that only performed in the summer. By 2009, it had gone full-time, and after five successful years, McIntyre widened the company’s focus to include more of his interests, such as film, photography and written word. As a nonprofit organization, the Trey McIntyre Project’s mission is to engage the community in meaningful ways through art and service.

The Trey McIntyre Project will soon stop at Jackson’s Thalia Mara Hall for the second round of the USA International Ballet Competition, following performances at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Va., and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Breckett, Mass.

McIntyre is the 2014 USA IBC artist-in-residence. Dancers who make it past the first round will perform contemporary dance he and fellow choreographer Matthew Neenan have coordinated. Working closely with McIntyre—who has more than 24 years of experience in the dance industry—will be a rare opportunity for many of the dancers.

Born in Witchita, Kan., McIntyre received dance training at North Carolina School of the Arts and Houston Ballet Academy. The Houston Ballet created a choreographic apprentice position for him in 1989, and promoted him to associate six years later.

Some of McIntyre’s successes include receiving a Choo San Goh Award for Choreography and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and some of the most prestigious dance companies have performed his work.

McIntyre’s most recent task and the first endeavor of the new Trey McIntyre Project is a crowd-sourced documentary film called “Ma Maison,” which he began filming in New Orleans November 2013. He currently resides in Boise, Idaho, the location of The McIntrye Project’s headquarters.

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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.