The dance company is presenting a new original work this month — its first without Hamrick, who died of cancer in February. Before she passed away, she picked a successor — Alyson Dolan.
Alyson Dolan took over the KDH Dance Company in 2023 after its founder, Kathy Dunn Hamrick , was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. The day Kathy Dunn Hamrick first met Alyson Dolan , she knew that if she were ever to ask someone to take over her dance company, it would be this young redhead from Florida.
Dolan wasn’t even living in Austin then, much less dancing with Hamrick’s company. She and her husband were just visiting to see if they’d want to move here. But in the Starbucks at Oltorf and I-35, Hamrick felt an instant kinship with Dolan. Both had attended Florida State University and had the same mentor.
Both loved playing with rhythm, speed, and time, bringing musicality to their work. And the two shared the same deep commitment to making and teaching dance.
“We just clicked,” Dolan said. Though Hamrick was 20 years Dolan’s senior and the director of her own company, she immediately treated Dolan like a colleague.
“There was a lot of mutual respect there I appreciated . … I think she knew that I was in it for the long haul. She did say one time, ‘I could tell you were really similar to me, building your life around dance. ’”Hamrick established her dance company in 1999 and over 24 years created a distinctive and valued place in Austin’s dance community.
She died of cancer in February. Two days after that initial coffee in 2012, Hamrick offered Dolan a spot in her company. Two weeks later, she asked Dolan to take over teaching one of her classes at Café Dance. And 11 years after that, Hamrick did indeed ask Dolan to take over KDH Dance Company.
She had to. In July 2023, Hamrick was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.
“Kathy not only built a company for us to live our best dance lives within,” she said, “but she built us a home and a place to be our best selves every week. I didn’t take that for granted. … And she wasn’t just our fearless leader and a mentor. She became a close friend that I laughed and cried with countless times over the years.
Imagining her not being there was awful. ” While the company was still in shock over the situation, the ever-industrious Hamrick was already pressing forward.
“In classic Kathy fashion,” Dolan said, “she was like, ‘OK, I’m done being pissed off and grieving. Now we gotta figure out, what are we gonna do? Is this the end? Do we wanna have one last show?
Do you want to continue this? What’s the plan? ’” Hamrick loved being the boss and doing it all – the creative work, the business, the teaching – but she wasn’t going to force that approach on her successor. Dolan said she told her to change the name and make it her own.
But Dolan didn’t change the name. She enlisted a team to help navigate the challenges of running KDH Dance that first year: working with a board for the first time, directing the creation of an original evening-length work. Hamrick was still around to ease the transition. She served on the board and attended rehearsals at Dolan’s invitation.
“Kathy would give me pages and pages of notes and affirmations of things she saw that she loved, things that I didn't even realize I was doing. Everybody needs that person that's like, ‘I trust you. I support you. Keep going.
’”, to be performed May 29-31 at East Side Performing Arts, and for the first time they’re developing a dance without the company’s founder. In February, 31 months after learning she had cancer, Kathy Dunn Hamrick passed away. For many an arts organization, the loss of its founder and the person who provided its creative vision for decades might have meant the loss of its artistic identity as well.
Hamrick established her company in 1999 and over 24 years created a distinctive and valued place in Austin’s dance community, one distinguished by Hamrick’s blend of experimentation, humanity and humor. Her works felt personal in ways that seemed to be bound up in Hamrick herself.revealed movements familiar from earlier KDHDC works: dancers with arms outstretched, swinging in grand arcs; sudden lunges; two bodies fitting together, as if molded to each other; slow, tender lifts and one dancer’s hand placed gently on another’s back, acts that signal compassion.
These gestures of kindness and benevolence have long been hallmarks of KDHDC’s dances. Hamrick may no longer be physically in the studio, but her presence is there. The spirit of joy and compassion that animated her dances for so many years drives this one, too. Dolan is bringing all that she’s learned in her 14 seasons with the company to this dance with joy and purpose, and it shows.
KDHDC’s artistic identity is intact. And the company's future is promising. Dolan reports that the company’s funding from the city and the state this year is the largest it’s ever been, and another new original production will premiere this fall. Hamrick is deeply missed, and will be for some time, but she took care to see to it that her company would continue in her absence.
That’s good news for her fans and a good example for old Austin institutions that would like to keep thriving in the new Austin.
Austin TX Cafe Dance KDH Dance Company Kathy Dunn Hamrick Love Loss & Other Constellations
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