She emigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Washington, D.C., where she was widely acknowledged as the city's leading choreographer and performer of modern dance until her death.

[11] The Wigman School offered a three-year program that included courses in anatomy, music, and pedagogy (the theory and practice of teaching) along with intensive instruction in dance.

Circling, locomotive scales, spinning, and vibration were some of the technical skills taught,[e] while the interplay of energy, space, and time were explored in class lessons.

[9] A certificate from the Wigman School was highly regarded in Germany, and many graduates went immediately into teaching or choreography (foregoing a dance career).

In July 1932, American producer Sol Hurok traveled to Germany to interest Wigman in a tour of South America.

Instead, Wigman proposed creating a 12-member group of her most advanced students and touring the United States with her new piece, Der Weg (The Journey).

[30] She continued to admit Jews as students to her school and as dancers in her troupe because, Kant concludes, Wigman believed they were "purified" by submitting to her purist dance ideology.

[31] In their study of modern dance under the Nazi regime, Lillian Karina and Marion Kant conclude that Wigman's sudden anti-Jewish policy was unforced.

[3] Wigman herself wrote to Nirenska in February 1951 and said that she had only dismissed Jews and joined Nazi cultural organizations because it was the only way she and her school could survive.

[33] Although Nirenska seems to have held ill feelings toward Wigman about the incident,[25] there is extensive evidence that the two women maintained a close friendship.

[41] Nirenska left Florence after just three months when the Mussolini regime invaded Ethiopia in October 1935 (causing strained relations with Poland).

[37] Horst had studied with Wigman in 1925, returning to the United States with a profound interest in indigenous and folk danceways as well as a stronger appreciation for the ways in which choreography and music could contrast and complement one another in modern dance.

[61][62] Her program included Eastern Ballad, A Scarecrow Remembers, St. Bridget: Stained-Glass Window, Sarabande for the Dead Queen, La Puerta Del Vino, Peasant Lullaby, Mad Girl, Dancer's Dilemma, and Unwanted Child, and was critically acclaimed.

[63] Her program consisted of Dancer's Dilemma, Street Girl, Eastern Ballad, Village Beauty, and A Scarecrow Remembers.

Dr. de Laban was head of the dance department at Adelphi University in New York City and hired Nirenska to teach in the college's summer program in 1951.

[65] Dancer Evelyn de la Tour asked Nirenska to teach modern dance at a summer school near her home in Sedgwick, Maine.

[75] Nirenska was invited to the 1958 American Dance Festival in New London, Connecticut, where she performed two solo pieces, Vigil By The Sea and The Eternal Fool.

[70] Three years later, a group of parents loaned her $15,000 ($200,000 in 2023 dollars),[11] and in October 1960 she opened the Pola Nirenska School of Modern Dance at 4601 Grant Road NW.

[11] She suffered from severe depression and mental illness, and spent years undergoing inpatient and outpatient treatment at St. Elizabeths Hospital, the large federally run psychiatric facility in D.C.[4] In the late 1970s, Nirenska's husband, Jan Karski, proposed that the couple build a new home.

[11] In 1977, Nirenska sought out dancer Liz Lerman, then teaching a rudimentary dance class for senior citizens at a local residential hotel.

The concert was produced by Jan Tievsky and featured dancers from Glen Echo Dance Theater, in addition to guest artists.

[86][6] Soon afterward, Nirenska left Glen Echo Dance Theater to focus on creating new work and began choreographing and rehearsing dancers in her home studio.

Jan Karski had testified before Congress in 1980 to promote federal funding for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The stress of revisiting memories of the loss of her family proved too much, and Nirenska had a severe nervous breakdown and extended paranoid episode.

[101] Techniques in Expressionist dance included an emphasis on dynamism, the exploration of space, tension,[101] the weight of the body,[101][46] and contact with the ground.

[46] Nirenska's Expressionism utilized muscle tension, stark movement,[37] circling, locomotive scales, spinning, and vibration.

[103] Her choreography was increasingly guided by three elements: Truthfulness, the depiction of emotion, and references to her flight from Nazism and the loss of her family.

Dancers like Chladek, Jooss, Leeder, van Laban, and Wigman made just as many contributions, but they did so at a time when American modern dance was still in its infancy.

[105] Nirenska was a major force in the modern dance community in Washington, D.C. She was a leader in choreography, direction, performance, and teaching.

At the time of her death, she was considered the "grand matriarch of modern dance" in the city,[86] and she left behind a legacy that has "few parallels in the annals of Washington art.