“My father was a hard-working farmer and sawyer,” Dan Wagoner explains in Connie Kreemer’s book on dance Further Steps. “He chewed tobacco, spat a lot, and could curse with great fluency. A friend once described him this way: ‘He was the most natural “cusser” I ever knew. He could make a “goddamn” sound almost theological, and “son of a bitch” a compliment. I never heard him cuss in anger or malice. His cursing was colorful, appropriate, and more eloquently descriptive than Oxford diction. . . .’
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Dan Wagoner has been dancing for 40 years, and with the best modern-dance choreographers: Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor. He is still busy creating dances, for London Contemporary Dance Theatre, for his own New York-based company, and recently for the Chicago Moving Company.
In this situation Wagoner thinks art has a simple purpose: “Good art opens doors–it’s a threshold. It has a promise to it.” He recalls taking technique classes from Graham. “It was as if she was on the threshold of a wonderful revelation. And you stood there, breathless. She never took you across the threshold–that was left for you to do–but it was the promise that something wonderful was going to happen.”
