Antonio Douthit-Boyd Bio

In 2015, Antonio Douthit-Boyd was named Co-Artistic Director of Dance at the Center of Creative Arts (COCA), where he began his dance training at the age of sixteen under Lee Nolting’s dance direction. Douthit-Boyd returned to COCA after a fulfilling dance career in New York City. He has trained at the Alexandra School of Ballet, North Carolina School of the Arts, Joffrey Ballet School, San Francisco Ballet School, and Arthur Mitchell’s Dance Theatre of Harlem School. Douthit-Boyd joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem Company in 2000 and quickly appeared in featured roles choreographed by George Balanchine. After three years with the company, he rose to the rank of Soloist in 2003. Douthit-Boyd went on to join the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2004, where he danced as a principal artist with the company for twelve years. During his performance career, he has performed for President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, Michael Jackson, and a list of high-profile patrons of the arts. In his tenure with the company, he has garnered critical acclaim from news outlets such as The Sun, Dance Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times whose Chief of Dance Critic Alstair Macaulay wrote, “Among the many superb dancers of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Antonio Douthit-Boyd has recently risen to a special magnificence.” Douthit-Boyd is an ABT® Certified Teacher and is also on faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, teaching ballet as a Distinguished Performing Artist. In 2021, Douthit-Boyd and his husband Kirven Douthit-Boyd will receive the Excellence in the Arts Award from the Arts and Education Council in St. Louis, Missouri. The Douthit-Boyds are committed to high-quality arts for everyone and the intentional task to diversify the arts to reflect the world’s many colors.