Mimi Kagan (1918–1999;

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Miriam Gabrilovna Kagan, and also known as Miriam Odza, Mimi Kagan Kim) 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 New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, the

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and

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

Early life

Kagan was born in

Samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

and moved to the United States as a young child. Her family was

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

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'' (1938), Holm's first United States performance. Other dancers in the Holm company included Louise Kloepper and Henrietta Greenhood (later known as Eve Gentry). Kagan was the dance director at Henry Street Settlement Playhouse (now Abrons Arts Center) in New York City.

San Francisco Bay Area

She later moved to

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

, 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 Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

, 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 ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' 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. File:Group shot, 1940s.jpg, with Ted Odza (c. 1940) File:Mimi Kagan Dance Group.jpg, Mimi Kagan Dance Group File:Earl and Mimi, unknown gathering, Princeton, 1966 or 1967.jpg, with Earl Kim (c. 1966) File:Four dancers.jpg, Dancers in "Exercises en Route" (c. 1970)

Personal life

Kagan was married twice, in 1940 to the sculptor Theodore Odza, and in 1958 to the composer

Earl Kim Earl Kim (1920–1998; né Eul Kim) was an American composer, and music pedagogue. He was of Korean descent. Early life, education, and training Kim was born on January 6, 1920, in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began pia ...

. Both marriages ended in divorce.
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kagan, Mimi 1918 births 1999 deaths People from Samara, Russia Expressionist choreographers Expressionist dancers American modern dancers 20th-century American dancers Soviet emigrants to the United States American people of Russian-Jewish descent People from Berkeley, California