AUBURN - For Sean McLeod, 2008 was the “year of giving.”

The renowned dancer and president of the Auburn-based New York Institute of Dance and Education has dedicated the past 20 years to providing others the same opportunities given to him by sharing the lessons found in dance, movement, self-confidence and self-appreciation.

But the last 12 months - since the very day the confetti was swept off the streets and calendar pages turned - have been different than any other McLeod has experienced. In 2008, he debuted a new dance company, developed a following across the Atlantic Ocean, was honored with an exhibit at the National Museum of Dance and assisted with opening a dance institute in British Columbia, Canada, as a sister facility to his own in Auburn.

While last year took McLeod in a new direction, it was also a culmination of his life's work.

“It's really quite strange, it's been a really overwhelming year for me,” he said. “I've been doing this a really, really, really long time and my goal is for people to find their own voice, to be with me versus a clone of me.

“I don't want an extra Sean McLeod; I want a choir, so I can't have anyone singing that sounds like me. They have to sing their own notes to create this harmony.”

That is what he taught former students Jerami Kipp and Lorienne Beals, and now as adults, they are passing on the same messages McLeod espouses to the next generation of dancers.

The year started with the organization of the Sean McLeod Dance Experience, a new traveling dance company created out of the Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre, the institute's professional modern dance company.

“This year, after much discussion and prodding from some really fantastic colleagues and friends throughout the world in the performing arts, I finally was convinced it was time to put my name on a dance company to further promote the concepts and principles that I embrace,” he said. “That was a huge struggle for me. It was a really big struggle and I'm not certain how much of that is because I've been told 1,000 times in my life that as a person of color and certainly as a black man, that perhaps I get opportunities because I'm black and not because I'm skilled, and so I've become incredibly hyper-sensitive to that.”

But he decided to go along with it and crafted a company that would not only reflect his techniques, but also go a step further than most dance companies.

“The objective was that the Sean McLeod Dance Experience was going to be presenting these principles,” he said. “Not only that, one of my greatest goals has been presenting people and giving other people the opportunity and stepping aside, and so the main focus of the dance company is not only promoting my work and my more than 25 years of work in choreographic repertory, but also helping other established and emerging choreographers get an opportunity to be seen.”

That includes Kipp, a choreographer at the institute and student at SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Dance.

In September, the Sean McLeod Dance Experience was invited to debut at the Fairfields Arts Centre in England and performed work from both McLeod, Kipp and other choreographers.

“That never happens,” Kipp said. “With the Sean McLeod Dance Experience, it is a blessing having my voice as a choreographer being set on professional dancers in concert with Sean's name. It has helped me immensely.”

The company will be very busy in 2009, as it will be performing in its Auburn debut in February and returning to England in April. There are plans to perform in South Africa, in Vancouver and possibly Germany before likely touring stateside.

But the dance company is only one arm of the changes 2008 brought to McLeod and the institute. Last January, Beals left to spend a year in England and ended up teaching McLeod techniques at the Basingstoke Academy of Dancing while spreading the word about her mentor and the institute.

“What's really amazing and one of the most humbling experiences I had was watching a ninth generation person I trained - I've been doing this a little while - go out and create an entirely different career for themselves using information they learned from the institute.”

The messages she taught inspired so many people that it led to her contacts at the Fairfields Arts Centre to invite McLeod to perform in England.

“What was really special about 2008 was that the invitation didn't come necessarily because of my global reputation,” he said. “It didn't come directly because of me. It really came directly because someone who had been (at the institute) was so profoundly affected that they wanted to affect somebody else.

“2008 was the year of giving, and the affect that that giving had.”

After performing this past summer, McLeod was invited to teach classes in a new style of dance he devised as well as certification in a renowned style of dance, the Alexander Technique.

All of this was coupled by the opening of The Landing: An affiliate of the New York Institute of Dance and Education in Vancouver, British Columbia, founded by Brenna McLaud and an exhibit at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs featuring McLeod and Kipp.

Reflecting over the past year, Beals believes 2008 represents the legacy of McLeod and the institute.

“We've always, always been able to see our impact on people, but I think what made it different, perhaps, is that in the past I think all of that has really been linked to Sean very directly,” she said. “I think what happened in 2008 is the concept of legacy, that it is no longer him the man; it is everything he represents that has now been carried on by so many different voices, and when you have so many different voices giving the same messages, it's like something of this must be true because it's not just one person it's worked for.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net