Robert Cohan

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Born in New York in 1925, Robert Cohan is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, a key figure in the development of British contemporary dance.

Cohan trained at the Martha Graham School. He began his professional career in dance when he joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1946. He quickly moved to soloist and then performed throughout the world as a partner to Martha Graham herself.

After appearing in the 1956 Broadway musical Shangri-La, Cohan left Graham's company to start his own small group of dancers and start his long career as a choreographer. Returning to the Graham Company in 1962 for its European tour he soon became a Co-Director of the Company with Bertram Ross.

In 1967, at the invitation of Robin Howard, he became the first Artistic Director of the Contemporary Dance Trust in London and as such was the founder Artistic Director of The Place, London Contemporary Dance School and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, which he directed for the next 20 years. To this day he serves on The Place's Board of Directors.

Cohan’s influence on the development of modern dance in Britain has been considerable. Having pioneered the teaching of contemporary dance technique in Britain, he was instrumental in the development of a vast following, not only for the repertory of London Contemporary Dance Theatre in the 70s and 80s but through his pioneering residencies throughout the country, which laid the ground work for the many other British companies that have grown up in the last twenty years.

As artistic director of London Contemporary Dance Theatre he created many works for the Company in collaboration with leading composers and designers. Among them, Stages, No Man’s Land, Stabat Mater, Forest, Testament, the full length Dances of Love and Death, commissioned for the Edinburgh Festival, Ceremony, Interrogations, Agora, Phantasmagoria and Video Life.

BBC TV, who commissioned A Mass for Man broadcast in 1985, has also broadcast his Waterless Method of Swimming Instruction, Cell, Forest, Stabat Mater and Nympheas.

Since 1989 Cohan has been working freelance and has choreographed several ballets for Scottish Ballet as well as companies in Germany and Italy.He was the Artistic Advisor to the Batsheva Dance Company from 1980 to 1990 and choreographed several works for them.

Robert Cohan has been continually in demand as a director of choreographic courses, notably the International Course for Professional Choreographers and Composers which he directed six times. He has also directed professional choreographic courses in New Zealand and Canada. As a teacher of Contemporary Dance he has taught extensively. Besides being a senior teacher at the Martha Graham School he worked at the Juilliard School, Harvard, Radcliff, and the University of Rochester in the U.S., York University in Toronto and at many colleges and universities in England.

With London Contemporary Dance Theatre he won the 1975 Evening Standard Award for The Most Outstanding Achievement In Ballet and in 1978 a similar award from the Society of West End Theatres (now the Olivier Award). He has also been given several honorary doctorates, including by the University of Kent, Exeter University and Middlesex University. In 1988 Robert Cohan was awarded an honorary CBE in recognition of his outstanding contribution to dance in the United Kingdom. He has since taken British nationality.

2005 saw a revival in interest in his work in Britain, including a critically acclaimed recreation of Forest byPhoenix Dance Theatre and a triumphant return to The Place with a new work Study for the White Christmas season. A gala performance marking Cohan's 80th birthday was held at Sadler's Wells in May 2005.

In 2006 Cohan was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Winchester.

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