The Dance/USA Trustees Award is given at the discretion of the Board of Trustees to recognize an outstanding professional whose work has special significance to the field and, in this case, to Dance/USA. Rena Shagan will be recognized for her outstanding contribution to the creation and growth of Dance/USA. As chair of the committee and task force that created Dance/USA, Ms. Shagan led her colleagues in defining relevant goals, programs, services, and constituencies necessary to create a national service organization that would support the rise of the national dance community.
“The Board of Trustees thought that the culmination of Dance/USA’s 25th Anniversary year was the perfect opportunity to recognize and give credit to those who had the wisdom and forethought to create an organization that would galvanize the professional dance field and allow us to speak with one, united voice,” said Cookie Ruiz, chair of the Dance/USA Board of Trustees. “Rena Shagan’s leadership in establishing the organization that would become Dance/USA is a testament to how far we have come as an industry in support of the art form.”
History
Prior to Dance/USA, the Association of American Dance Companies (AADC) was created in 1966 as a dance service organization that fostered economic and institutional growth of the national dance community. AADC provided access to information and professional development geared toward organizational stability and access to higher standards of funding. AADC was in operation for 14 years until it folded in 1980 due to a mix of circumstances.
Following the closure, Rena Shagan was one of the many voices determined to find an organized way of supporting the growing dance community. In 1980, Ms. Shagan was tapped to serve as chair of the “Long Range Planning Committee” which was tasked with funding and administering a national study on the creation of a national dance service organization and taking action on the results of the study. Under Shagan’s leadership, the committee held several meetings in the following years and formed a strong task force whose work resulted in the creation of Dance/USA. Rena Shagan’s leadership on the Task Force for a National Dance Organization was essential to the establishment and continued success of Dance/USA. -- www.danceusa.org
