Donald Byrd is Artistic Director of Spectrum Dance Theater and a Tony-nominated (The Color Purple) and Bessie Award-winning (The Minstrel Show) choreographer. He has worked with the SDC Diversity Task Force and other SDC related ad hoc groups. During the course or his career, he has created works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, The Joffrey Ballet among others; and worked extensively in theater and opera including The Public Theater, The 5th Avenue, Seattle Opera, Dutch National Opera, and San Francisco Opera. Awards, prizes, and fellowships include Doris Duke Artist Award, James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award, Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts (Cornish College of the Arts), Masters of Choreography Award (The Kennedy Center), Fellow at The American Academy of Jerusalem, James Baldwin Fellow of United States Artists, Resident Fellow of The Rockefeller Center Bellagio, Fellow at the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue (based at Harvard),  and the Mayor’s Arts Award for his sustained contributions to the City of Seattle. He was the 2023 recipient of SDCF’s Gordon Davidson Award, which recognizes a director or choreographer for lifetime achievement and distinguished service in the national not-for-profit theatre.