Faculty/Staff Directory
Stephanie Nugent
Faculty - Contemporary Technique, Composition, Improvisation
Website: http://www.nugentdance.com
E-Mail:
Phone: 661.253.7868
Fax: 661.253.1562
Room: E123D
Stephanie Nugent is a choreographer, performer, and educator with special interest in dance/theater and improvisational dance forms. Artistic Director of Nugent Dance, a vehicle for her creative work in solo performance and group choreography, she has also enjoyed a performing career since 1991 with numerous American and internationally-based artists and companies. Ms. Nugent holds a B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts and a M.F.A. from California State University - Long Beach. An Associate Professor of Dance at UC Santa Barbara from 2001-2007, Ms Nugent joined the faculty of CalArts in January 2008.
Nugent’s choreography has been presented in New York by Dance New Amsterdam, the Next Generation of Dance in Westchester and the Next Stage Company; in Italy by the Daniella Agostini and the Commune of Padova, in Utah by Ririe Woodbury Dance Company and Loose Gravel Dance Company; in North Carolina by North Carolina School of the Arts; in Minnesota by Minnesota State University –Mankato, and in California by Los Angeles Dance Kaleidoscope, Malashock Dance and Company, Sushi Visual and Performance Art, Highways, and Santa Barbara Dance Theater among others. Her honors include the 2001 Individual Artist Award presented by the Santa Barbara Arts Fund, a 2002 Lester Horton Award for her performance in Victoria Marks’ Against Ending, and eight nominations at the 2006 Lester Horton Awards for her choreography, solo and company performance, and costume design.
Ms. Nugent’s evenings of creative work include Somewhere Between Falling and the Ground, Relative/ Distance, and ONE; ‘Tis Spring: from memory to musings (co-created with Kristen Smiarowski), Treading the Balance (co-created with Stefan Fabry), Keith Johnson/Dancers and Nugent Dance in concert, and numerous evenings of live dance and music co-created with composer Robin Cox. In summer 2006, Ms Nugent was commissioned by Dance New Amsterdam, to begin the creation of her newest series of works surrounding issues and perspectives on ‘frames of reference’. Towards this performance she created Frame/ReFrame.
As a collaborative artist, Nugent has worked with composer/ performers including clarinetist Todd Feeney, jazz pianist Mike Bellar, percussion duo Skin and Bones, NYC based avant-garde composer/ performer Eve Beglarian, and since, 1997 she has maintained an on-going collaborative relationship with her husband composer/violinist Robin Cox. Her collaborative interests also involve work with fellow choreographers, Kristen Smiarowski, Shel Rasch, Stefan Fabry, and Carmela Hermann, visual-artists Catherine Siri Nugent and Erin Martinez, and scholars including Aysha Hidayatullah (feminist and gender studies in Islam) with whom she engaged in extended dialogue regarding relationships between women and clothing, women and God, and which became the basis for her work Untitled Interior.
As a performer, Ms. Nugent has most recently worked with Keith Johnson/Dancers and Victoria Marks. She has also performed throughout the U.S. and abroad with American dance companies and choreographers including Ririe Woodbury Dance Company, Malashock Dance and Company, Leslie Partridge, Della Davidson Dance, Robin Prichard, Carmela Hermann, Eun Jung Gonzalez, Christopher Pilafian, and with internationally based choreographers Il Kyu Park (South Korea), Abelardo Geomache (Venezuela), Rejo Kela (Finland), Susanna Tambuti (Argentina), and Inbal Pinto (Israel).
Ms. Nugent specializes in teaching contemporary dance technique, solo and ensemble improvisation, contact improvisation, and mentoring student choreographers through creation and production of their work. She has served on the faculties of UC Santa Barbara, California State University -Long Beach, Orange County High School for the Performing Arts, North Carolina Governor’s School, Cerritos College, Rio Hondo College, Orange Coast College, and Citrus College. She has taught master classes and workshops at Highways Performance Space, Velocity Dance Center, UCLA, University of Montana, Meredith College, Minnesota State University –Mankato, Los Angeles High School for the Performing Arts, and for organizations including Santa Barbara Dance Collective and Sonna Blauma Danza. Nugent was a member of the teacher pool for contact improvisation at Dance Home in Santa Monica, and was the founder and teacher of a contact improvisation class and jam in San Pedro, CA from 2000-2001.
She currently serves as Vice President of Iridian Arts Inc. and was on the board of Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara from 2002-2007.
For more information on Stephanie Nugent, her creative projects and upcoming performances/workshops, please visit www.nugentdance.com
