On Saturday, May 30, at 8 pm, Susan Hess Modern Dance (SHMD) will present In Performance: Remembering Daniel Nagrin, a special one-time performance that will offer rare glimpses at the life and work of late legendary dancer, choreographer, author and teacher Daniel Nagrin, one of the most highly regarded figures in American Modern Dance.  Through solo dance performances, never-before-seen video and first-hand recollections and remembrances from those who knew and worked closely with him in his five decades-plus career, SHMD will pay tribute to Nagrin’s lifeand legacy.

“Danny’s approach to dance was revolutionary,” says *SHMD founder and Artistic Director Susan Hess*, who studied with Nagrin at the age of 19, prior to enrolling in Julliard. “His impact on the world of dance was profound and has proved to be a lasting influence for me throughout my career.”

The evening’s showing will feature Nagrin’s classic solos “Strange Hero,” “Path,” “Wordgame,” and “Someone” performed by *Shane O’Hara*, associate professor at James Madison University and a dance-theater artist. O’Hara, who collaborated with Nagrin for more than 20 years and reconstructs the artist’s work through “The Nagrin Project,” was selected as Artistic Director of the Nagrin Foundation by Nagrin himself, prior to his passing last year.

“Daniel had an unyielding passion and dedication to the art of performing,” O’Hara says of his longtime mentor and collaborator. “And that’s something that I took from him that’s always helped me push my work forward.”

In addition to O’Hara’s faithful interpretations of these works, Donald Laney, co-Artistic Director of West Virginia Dance Company, will perform another of Nagrin’s most famous pieces, “Spanish Dance.”

Along with performances of Nagrin’s celebrated works, the show will feature original video materials provided by The Nagrin Project and never before-seen clips from the SHMD’s archives that chronicle Nagrin’s participation in SHMD’s Five American Dance Pioneers, a lecture and film series the studio hosted in 1984.  Susan Hess who studied and worked extensively with Nagrin, will share her firsthand experiences and memories of the pioneering choreographer.

From Broadway where he was once named Best Male Dancer, to film, to being celebrated as the “Great Loner of American Dance,” Nagrin’s illustrious career spanned five-plus decades.  His groundbreaking style, which brought together a passionate life-long commitment to humanism and a keen inclination to gesture, defied the status quo and gave way to an entirely new approach to the craft that was unmistakably his own. Celebrated for his intensely dramatic solo pieces, which have become modern-dance classics, his works consistently earned the praise of critics throughout his career. “For him, jazz was not a finger-popping, torso-twisting genre of self-involvement but a tool to explore character,” wrote Don McDonagh in Dance  magazine.  “The gesture is the movement, and gesture, as acting, is never imposed upon the movement,” Anna Kisselgoff wrote in a 1994 review in The New York Times.  “And when Mr. Nagrin put together those gestures and steps,” Ms. Kisselgoff wrote in another review, “no specific technique springs to mind, no school or tradition provides a ready context.”

As a performer, Shane O’Hara has shared his work with audiences throughout the United States and Europe.  He has worked with the Thompson & Trammell Dance Company in residencies in Poland, Denmark, Portugal and Germany. O’Hara was also a guest instructor at the Pro Danza Italia Summer Workshop in Tuscany in 1998 and at the White Mountain Summer Dance Festival in 2005. He has received grants from the USIS/American Embassy, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and Virginia Commission for the Arts as well as a Fulbright Fellowship to Portugal. Presently O’Hara is a Professor of Dance and Coordinator of the Dance Program at James Madison University and works professionally setting commissioned dances throughout the U.S., performing a concert of Nagrin’s solo works entitled The Nagrin Project and touring as Shane O’Hara  Solo Dance.

Dancer, choreographer and teacher Donald Laney graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with an MFA in Dance. He is currently the co-Artistic Director of the West Virginia Dance Company. Before entering the graduate program at UCI, Laney performed with the West Virginia Dance Company, Houlihan & Dancers (Miami, FL), Randy James Dance Works (NYC), X-Factor (NC), and the Charleston Ballet. While attending UCI, he had the opportunity to perform for Donald McKayle, Loretta Livingston, Lisa Naugle, and Christine Chrest, as well as presenting his own choreography, which was chosen to represent the university at ACDFA in 2003 and 2004. Laney was the 2005 WV Governor’s School instructor in dance.  In 2008, he was honored to learn “Spanish Dance” from Nagrin and has been performing the work in recent concerts.

SHMD has a played a leading role in the Philadelphia dance community for almost 30 years by offering programs of consistent excellence and originality.  Dedicated to investing in the professional development of choreographers and presentation of high-quality dance works, the organization’s mission is to serve choreographers, dancers, performance artists, and audiences in an environment where creativity and experimentation flourish.

In Performance: Remembering Daniel Nagrin
Saturday, May 30 at 8:00 pm,
Susan Hess Modern Dance Studio, 2030 Sansom Street
Tickets are $15.
For more information, go to www.hessdance.org