About Shirley Mordine

Widely considered to be the founder of contemporary Modern dance in Chicago, Shirley Mordine was a visionary dancer, performer, choreographer, and educator. Her five-decade career in Chicago included founding the Dance Department at Columbia College Chicago, the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, and originating the college’s revered Dance Presenting Series. A prolific artist, Shirley founded and served as Artistic Director of Mordine & Company Dance Theater from 1969 to 2019. 

Her contributions sparked and encouraged a vibrant, enduring Chicago dance community with generations of Mordine & Company and Columbia College Chicago Dance alums continuing to form the fabric of Chicago and the Midwest’s vital contemporary dance scene.

From the west coast where she graduated from Mills College in 1958, having studied with noted choreographers Anna Halprin and Welland Lathrop — key influences in forming her idiosyncratic, theatrical style of Modern dance — Shirley arrived in Chicago in 1967 with her husband and three young children. She taught at Hull House and Urban Gateways, was an artist-in-residence at Evanston Township High School, and took a part-time job teaching dance in the theatre department at Columbia College Chicago. 

In 1969, she simultaneously launched The Dance Troupe (later called Mordine & Company Dance Theater) and a new dance department at Columbia College. She would chair that department for more than 30 years.

Video above: Shirley Mordine speaks about her arrival in Chicago in the late 1960’s, the early days of her long-running, prolific dance company, the creation and evolution of The Dance Center of Columbia College and its presenting series, and her love of choreography, performing and mentoring. An excerpt from Chicago Dance History Project 2016 interview

In 1972, Shirley spearheaded the formation of the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago to house the dance department. In 1974, she originated the Dance Presenting Series, which brought prestigious contemporary American and international dance companies and artists to Chicago including Trisha Brown, Donald Byrd, Eiko & Koma, Garth Fagan, Joe Goode, Erik Hawkins, Margie Jenkins, Bill T. Jones, Alonzo King, Ralph Lemon, Liz Lerman, José Limón, Loretta Livingston, Susan Marshall, Bebe Miller, Momix, Meredith Monk, Ohad Naharin, David Parsons, Merián Soto, Urban Bush Women, and many others, often for the first time. In 1991, she produced the first Dance Africa/Chicago with Dance Center Executive Director Woodie T. White and Baba Chuck Davis, which ran for well over a decade and has periodically been revived by other organizations. By the late 1990s, the Dance Center had outgrown its landmark building on Sheridan Road in Uptown, moving to the heart of Columbia’s South Loop campus in 2000. Now in its 53rd presenting season, the Dance Center’s Dance Presenting Series remains the city’s only arts presenter dedicated exclusively to dance and embodied art.

Shirley loved educating and presenting, but her life-long passion was choreography. During and after her time at Columbia College, her insatiable curiosity kept her creating dances for Mordine & Company Dance Theater, which made regular appearances on the Dance Presenting Series. “I always think of making dances in terms of what I observe in the world,” she said in 2017. “’Every dance should be new, strange and beautiful.’ I don’t remember who told me that, but I like it.” Mordine & Company Dance Theater operated as a repertory company for 50 years—credited as the Midwest’s longest-running Modern dance company. 

Shirley lived and created from 1936 to 2025. The Shirley Mordine Dance Maker Award has been established by her family and friends to honor and continue her dedication to dance education and performance and to the city of Chicago.