Hannah Kahn Dance Company’s Thrum and Other Dances May 3 and 4
A preview by Robin McNeil
The Hannah Kahn Dance Company will present “Thrum and Other Dances” at the Denver School of the Arts – Schomp Theater located at 7111 Montview Blvd. Denver, CO 80220, on Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4, 2013 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $22 for adults and $18 for students, seniors and Colorado Dance Alliance members.
The twelve member dance company will perform five dances choreographed by Hannah Kahn between 1984 and 2013.
The performances will include Cross Purposes, a premiere for seven dancers. This dance is a continuation of Kahn’s 42 years of choreography, celebrating the disparate reasons why human beings dance.
Also on the program: Thrum (2012) and Circling Back (2012). Circling Back will include live music performed by soprano Irene Friedlob and pianist Mutsumi Moteki.
Completing the program will be excerpts from Kahn’s 1984 dance entitled Quintet No. 3 in E Flat Major, set to music of Dvorak, and an edited version of Kahn’s 1996 dance, Rift.
About
The Hannah Kahn Dance Company, one of Denver’s finest professional modern dance troupes has been sharing its passion for dance with the Denver community since 1988. The company’s activities include performances, educational outreach programs to public schools, and participation in festivals. The company performs frequently at the Lakewood Cultural Center, the Shwayder Theatre, Denver Arts Week, and the Denver Ballet Guild‘s “Showcase of Dance” at Teikyo Loretto Heights. The company has also performed numerous times at Cleo Parker Robinson Theatre in Denver, the Cherry Creek Arts Festival and the Dairy Center for the Arts. Free performances by the Company have been seen in public spaces such as Hudson Gardens and Events Center, the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Natural History Museum, the Denver Zoo, and the Denver Botanic Gardens.
The Denver based Hannah Kahn Dance Company was formed in 1992.
The New York based company was established in 1976 and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. The current Colorado Company receives funding from the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, the Denver Foundation, and the Denver Ballet Guild.
Each year the Company performs its interactive and educational school show How to Build a Dance for thousands of children in Denver, Arapahoe, Jefferson, and Adams counties. They have successfully been offering intensive residencies in public schools for more than a decade. These residencies include workshops during regular schools hours and continue with after school rehearsals for a piece of choreography set on a group of students by a company member. These residencies culminate in a joint performance at the school by the Company and the students. We also perform in day treatment centers for people with disabilities, at nursing homes, and at resident treatment centers for troubled teens.
The Company holds three modern dance technique classes each week on an ongoing basis at its home base, Open Studio, in Denver’s Historic Baker neighborhood. See their classes page for more information.
Hannah Kahn, founder and artistic director of the Hannah Kahn Dance Company, is a master teacher with 35 years of experience creating over one hundred dances. Some of the strongest influences on her choreography were her childhood classes in Ithaca, New York, with Iris Barbura, her studies of the techniques of Jose Limon and Martha Graham, and her performances of dances by Doris Humphrey and Anna Sokolow. The practice of Tai Chi has also influenced her movement style.
After graduating from the Julliard School, Kahn founded the Company in New York, and directed it there for 12 years before moving to Colorado in 1988. Kahn has received two NEA choreography fellowships, a New York State Council on the Arts individual choreographers fellowship, and a CoVisions Recognition Award in dance choreography from the Colorado Council on the Arts. In 2009, Hannah was honored as a “Living Legend of Dance” by the Carson Brierly Dance Library; an award that honors those individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to dance in Colorado.
In addition to her own company, her works have been in the repertories of over a dozen other dance companies and she yearly re-stages her work on the budding artists of the Denver School of the Arts.
