Mary Wohl Haan and Haan Dances

Mary Wohl Haan, modern dancer and choreographer, is artistic director of Boulder’s HAAN Dances, which serves as a vehicle for her creative work as a soloist and as a pick-up company for group pieces and projects.  Since moving to Boulder in 1990, her creative work and productions have garnered both local and regional recognition including Boulder Arts Commission grants, an AHAB/Neodata Fellowship, a CO Council on the Arts Recognition Award, and a “Best of Boulder” for Best New Choreography.  Commissions and invitations to perform and choreograph have included work with Chicago’s Links Hall ‘Strange Bedfellows Series’, DanceLoop Chicago’s ‘New Dances,’ and Bob Eisen/ Dance; in Denver with Deborah Reshotko/Speaking of Dance, Hannah Kahn Dance Company, Jan Justis, and Paul Fiorino /Ballet Arts Theatre; in Ft. Collins with Dance Connection Performance Network, Impact Dance, Canyon Concert Ballet, and CO State University; Salt Lake City’s Brolly Arts, Kinetic Café and Utah Choreographers Lab; and Boulder’s Lyra Mayfield, Turning the Wheel Productions, Interweave Dance Theatre, Open Door Dance Theatre, Rebekah West, and most recently, with Nancy Cranbourne’s 40 Women Over 40 Dance Company.

Before moving to Colorado, Mary spent nine years teaching at Chicago’s Columbia College Dance Center and performing as principal dancer and assistant artistic director of Mordine & Company Dance Theatre.  Performing throughout the Midwest, in New York City, and at the World Expo in Brisbane, Australia, she won Chicago’s 1989 Ruth Page Award for “Outstanding Dancer of the Year.”  Mary also has an MFA degree in choreography from the University of Utah, and has taught in colleges and universities in Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Connecticut, Utah, and Colorado.

She has been an active member of the Colorado dance community serving on a variety of arts service organizations including the board of the Arts & Humanities Assembly of Boulder (now Boulder County Arts Alliance), the CO Dance Alliance as an Advisory Board member, board president, PR & Marketing coordinator for the Boulder Dance Alliance/Space for Dance and advisory board for the Dairy Center for the Arts.  She has served on grant panels and adjudications for awards in Colorado, Oregon, and New York, and is currently Coordinator of the Boulder Arts Commissions’ Dance Bridge, a resource project for dance and the Boulder community.

Artist Statement

I grew up relishing the idea (first out of necessity, and then desire), that one-among-the-many could truly speak of the human condition and our commonality, and still develop a uniquely individual voice. As one in a family of twelve children this wasn’t always easy to prove – until I began to dance. Though the eldest daughter, I was essentially raised in a pack, with fierce loyalty as well as competitiveness.  Because of this, I have always had a heightened sensitivity to the feelings of others.  Gradually I realized that each individual within the group was just as important as the group itself and the groups’ dynamic.  Through my exposure to dance and the arts, I also realized how tactile this was for me. 

These beliefs have informed my artistic expression and mission as I use dance to touch people - dance that is dynamic, immersed in sensation, and emotionally evocative, yet always served with a side of tender.  Through creative exploration I play to the extremes, using full expansive movement that devours space and is shaped by an infectious musicality, as well as dances that mine stark, minimal moments and movement images – developing a unique voice along the way. 

To this end, HAAN Dances embraces new collaborations and technologies with an inquisitive and soul searching nature.  HAAN Dances is a vehicle for my creative work both as choreographer using a pick-up company for group pieces and projects, and as a springboard for solo ideas I choreograph myself, use in multimedia projects, or commission from other artists.