Mimi Kagan
Mimi Kagan was a Russia-born American modern dancer, choreographer, educator and dance journalist. She was the founder of the avant-garde Mimi Kagan Dance Group and was active and influential in modern dance and choreography in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Princeton, New Jersey and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Early life
Kagan was born in Samara in the Russian Empire and moved to the United States as a young child. Her family was Jewish.Career
New York City
Kagan trained for dance under Hanya Holm, one of the "Big Four" founders of American modern dance. She later became part of the Hanya Holm Dance Company. Kagan danced in Trend, Holm's first United States performance. Other dancers in the Holm company included Louise Kloepper and Henrietta Greenhood.Kagan was the dance director at Henry Street Settlement Playhouse in New York City.
San Francisco Bay Area
She later moved to Berkeley, California, and worked as a co-director of Dance Associates. She founded her own company, the Mimi Kagan Dance Group, and in 1947 also worked under the name the San Francisco Dance League alongside Anna Halprin. She received an award from the San Francisco Arts Commission for dance presentation. She also taught dance at the California Labor School in San Francisco.In 1957, the Mimi Kagan Dance Group was named as a "Communist group" by Herbert Philbrick. In 1961, the House Un-American Activities Committee targeted and blacklisted the Mimi Kagan Dance Group as a "subversive organization", which was part of a list published in national newspapers.
Princeton, and later Cambridge
In 1971 and 1972, she collaborated with her second husband, the composer Earl Kim, on the work "Exercises en Route", which toured and featured text by Samuel Beckett, and the soprano soloist Benita Valente. The show had Kagan dancing and four other dancers from Boston Ballet, including Anamarie Sarazin, Eileen O'Reilly, Robert Steele and Anthony Williams. In the 1970s, Kagan was a dance correspondent for The Boston Globe daily newspaper.Kagan died in 1999 in Oakland, California, and is buried at the Mountain View Cemetery. Her students included Murray Louis, and she designed choreography for Adrienne Hawkins.