About the Dance Artist

Shane O’Hara has shared his movement art form with audiences throughout the United States and the world including concerts in Lisbon, Athens, Krakow, Rio de Janeiro, Chengdu, China, New York, and Washington, D.C.  He has taught in residencies in Poland, Denmark, Portugal and Germany. He also was a guest instructor at Pro Danza Italia Summer Workshop in Tuscany, the Florida Dance Festival, and at the White Mountain Summer Dance Festival. O’Hara has received grants from the USIS/American Embassy, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, the Arts Council of the Valley and the Virginia Commission for the Arts as well as a Fulbright Fellowship to Portugal. Currently he is on the roster of the Fulbright International Specialist program.  O’Hara was named JMU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts Madison Scholar in 2010 and received JMU’s Provost Award for International Education in 2014.

O’Hara works professionally setting commissioned dances throughout the U.S., performing a concert of dance master Daniel Nagrin’s solo works entitled The Nagrin Project and touring as Shane O’Hara * Solo Dance.  Recent artistic activities for Mr. O’Hara include performances in the JMU New Dance Festival, Dance Place in Washington, D.C., Dogtown Dance Theatre in Richmond, and the Dancing Rebels National Conference in Saratoga Springs. In 2014 and 2017 he was an artist in residence in Rio de Janeiro and Victoria, Brazil.  

In 2007 O’Hara presented The Nagrin Project at the Centre de National de la Danse in Paris. He worked closely with dance master Daniel Nagrin for over 25 years and has been working with the Daniel Nagrin Foundation in developing projects related to the dances of Mr. Nagrin and his teaching philosophies. In 2015 he was commissioned to set Daniel’s solo ”Path” on San Francisco dance artist Christy Funsch. In 2018 he set Daniel’s solo “Indeterminate Figure” on dancer and former Jose Limon Dance Company member Paul Dennis.

Future creative projects for Professor O’Hara include continuing to direct the JMU London Summer Intensive on Contemporary Dance and Performance and developing international dance exchange residencies in Brazil, Martinique, and Winchester, England. Mr. O’Hara is a Professor Emeritus of Dance at James Madison University and is also a RYA 200 / 500 hour certified yoga teacher.