Today on MadisonOnline

Dancing with the issues

Dance professor Shane O'Hara continues the legacy of modern dance pioneer Daniel Nagrin

By Colleen Dixon
Photographs by Richard Finkelstein
As seen in Winter 2008 Madison

Shane O'Hara listens as his mentor, and modern dance pioneer, Daniel Nagrin critiques a rehearsal.

Shane O'Hara listens as his mentor, and modern dance pioneer, Daniel Nagrin critiques a rehearsal.

Modern dance pioneer Daniel Nagrin visited campus this fall with a two-part mission -- sharing his passion for dance with JMU students and working with JMU dance professor Shane O'Hara on several solo dances. O'Hara, dance area coordinator in the School of Theatre and Dance, rehearsed in October with Nagrin, his longtime mentor, in preparation for a performance at the Centre National de la Danse in Paris, (Paris National Center of Dance). In November, O'Hara performed six solo dances that Nagrin, now age 90, originated during the '40s, '50s and '60s -- a time when solo modern dances were not in vogue. Nagrin's solos break with the abstract form favored by dance companies and instead deal with social and political issues.

The six solo dances, Indeterminate Figure, Man of Action, Path, Someone, Strange Hero and Word Game, form what is billed as "The Nagrin Project."

"Daniel's work is about the struggle we all go through. It's a more humanistic form of dance," says O'Hara. "You see a person on stage trying to figure out who he is, trying to figure out what life's going to be like. The inner life that is in the work is important." Through the solo dances, O'Hara portrays the inner life of a working-class man, a mobster and Everyman.

The conflicts O'Hara portrays in the six dances reflect timeless grappling with issues still relevant today. "Indeterminate Figure is pertinent today, 50 years after it was first performed. We're still talking about bombs and war, homosexuality, horror and terror," says O'Hara.

'Daniel Nagrin's work is about the human condition, the struggles we all go through.' -- Shane O'Hara

"That's the difference between works like Daniel's solos and other dances of the day. Some dances from history are dated. They're nice, and they're representative of that time, but they don't really strike you. They don't have that passionate inner life that people connect with today. Because the dances are about the human condition, they never change. ... I want to make a T-shirt for a friend who's helped out with sound and lighting of the performance. On one side it will say, "The Nagrin Project," and on the other, "Some Dances were Meant to Last Forever."

About the dancer

O'Hara portrays a seedy gangster in <em>Strange Hero,</em> a dance created by Nagrin.

O'Hara portrays a seedy gangster in Strange Hero, a dance created by Nagrin.

Shane O'Hara has taught dance at the university level since 1986 and has worked extensively with modern dance master Daniel Nagrin. O'Hara tours professionally as Shane O'Hara*Solo Dance, sharing his work with audiences throughout the United States and Europe. A Fulbright Fellowship winner, O'Hara's choreography commissions include the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble of Detroit, Southern Danceworks of Birmingham and Grupo de Danca de Almada in Lisbon. O'Hara began studying acting, but a professor told him, "There are a lot of out-of-work male actors, but not that many out-of-work male dancers."

About the mentor

Visiting guest artist for fall 2007 Daniel Nagrin is professor emeritus of dance at Arizona State University, where he first met Shane O'Hara. Nagrin's career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher spans more than six decades and includes hundreds of accolades. He is the creator and performer of an extensive solo dance repertory, which he toured throughout the United States, Europe and the Pacific beginning in 1957.

Download the PDFs for this feature and all of Winter 2008 Madison."Dancing with the issues" begins on Page 26.
Click here to subscribe to Madison.