Nancy Meehan (1931-2016) was a San Francisco native. The New York Times called her "a highly original choreographer and dancer whose evocative, plotless works on nature themes found a special place amid opposing trends in experimental dance." Ms. Meehan performed with the Anna Halprin-Welland Lathrop Dance Company and presented her first dances in the Bay Area. In New York, she studied with Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins and joined the Hawkins company in the early 1960's, performing as a leading dancer through 1969. In 1970, she established her school and company. Ms. Meehan collaborated with Anthony Candido for costumes and sets. She always had original scores commissioned for her dances and worked with many contemporary composers, including collaborating extensively with Eleanor Hovda. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship for choreography, and grants from New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, among others.
Ms. Meehan passed away in November 2016. (Link to her obituary by Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times.)
“To re-cognize, to re-vivify, to illuminate the moments when one’s existence is sensed as actual is to experience the mystery of dance and its power as it passes through the dancer to the audience.
From “Undefinable Reality” by Nancy Meehan