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 other facilities, and participation in festivals. The company has performed frequently at the Lakewood Cultural Center, The Dairy Arts Center, the Cleo Parker Robinson Theatre and the Denver Ballet Guild‘s “Showcase of Dance”. Free performances by the Company have been seen in public spaces such as Hudson Gardens and Event Center, the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Natural History Museum, the Denver Zoo, and the Denver Botanic Gardens.
about
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 Bowen Family Fund at The Denver Foundation, Colorado Creative Industries 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 the Denver Metro area. We have successfully been offering intensive residencies in public schools for two decades. 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 our classes page for more information.
Hannah Kahn, founder and artistic director of the Company,
is a master teacher with fifty years of experience creating over one hundred and forty 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 twelve 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 for over twenty years, each year she staged a work of hers on the budding artists of the Denver School of the Arts.