We recently connected with Michelle Thompson and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Michelle, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Being an artist is a risk. Working so hard at something that may or may not get selected or reviewed or observed or provide positive financial outcomes can be heart breaking, but at the same time if you don’t try then you will never know or experience the joys that art can bring to people and yourself. I feel that I was born to be an artist, and each day as an artist is a gift and an immense lesson. I am a creative risk taker who loves collaboration. I challenge myself with cross discipline works that bring many innovative minds together. I work with composers, musicians, playwrights, actors, visual artists, poets, fashion designers, museums, unique spaces, filmmakers, and more. During each collaboration, I learn a bit more about myself and what’s possible. Collaboration allows for more minds to come together to create something that can heal, teach, inspire, motivate, and entertain. I am in the middle of my biggest risk to date. It’s called “Dinner Party”. This piece feels like a cross between a dance and a play where the audience becomes a fly on the wall of some very intimate conversations. These storylines touch on every day topics and intimate topics that affect people and their relationships. I have collaborated with playwrights, voice actors, and dancers to create multiple storylines that will collide at a Dinner Party. The individual characters on stage are unaware of the struggles or baggage that each couple holds, but the audience will know the inside scoop. The cast will be 16, which means many funds will need to be raised to pay the dancers properly. That financial component makes this extra risky, but I believe very passionately in this project and the response I have already received from short excerpt performances tells me this is worth the risk. There is still a long road ahead until the premiere in the Fall of 2025, but I am ready to tackle the risks that come my way.

Michelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I began my training at the San Francisco Ballet School and went on to have a 14 year career with Ballet Austin. I also began my choreographic career in Austin, TX while also graduating from St. Edward’s University, meeting me husband, and having two beautiful children. I moved to New York City in 2015 to pursue my choreographic career further. In New York I have been able to present evening length works, collaborate with grammy award winning musicians, participate in New York Fashion Week, direct a dance company, choreograph for a music video, teach at SUNY Purchase, Steps on Broadway, Peridance and other renowned dance training facilities, and much more. I am honestly proud of many things that I have accomplished, but my resilience is probably the thing I am most proud of. There is immense competition and talent in this field, and it’s very challenging to get opportunities. Sometimes you get 20 rejections before you get 1 yes. That can be hard on the mind, body, and spirit. Resilience can help you bounce back, learn, and keep going. I am also very proud that I have been able stay in this creative world while also being a mother. This is not an easy balance and has taken me years to understand and figure out, and I am still figuring it out. My role as a mother enriches and adds to my role as an artist, and the things I have learned throughout all my years as an artist have made me a better mother.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I had known more about grant writing, fundraising, and web design. I have spent all of my years cultivating and growing my artistic practice, but that’s not enough to make it in this career. Some people get very lucky and they get selected to create works, but most of the time choreographers need to apply for opportunities or raise their own funds to make those opportunities happen. As a choreographer, you need to be an artist, but also a business person. I learned a lot about business at a young age from my Dad and my Mom. They were successful business owners, and I feel that I got a lot of skills from them around business and communication. I am so grateful for that knowledge from them. It wasn’t until later in my choreographic career that I realized how much administrative and business oriented skills were needed. I was very lucky to direct a dance company called Spark Movement Collective in New York for 4 years, and learned so much from the supportive and highly skilled board members. Even then I was entering many of these fundraising endeavors, website designing, ticketing platforms, and grant writing endeavors as part of a team. Now I am embarking on more and more by myself. Part of me wishes I was tackling and applying for these grants and learning to build my website years ago.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think many people think about dance as a hobby, and it can be a beautiful hobby. Dance is wonderful for your mental health and physical health, and has shown to create so much healing for all walks of life. There are dancers and choreographers out there who have chosen this as a profession, and those people are bringing works of art to their community. I think non-creatives maybe don’t understand the cost associated with hiring professional dancers and the number of hours it takes to create a show. Sometimes when I share a budget for a show with a non-creative, they are shocked about the amount of money it takes. I then share with them the theater rental rate, the hourly studio rental costs, and that you need to pay dancers for their time. Each hour a dancer is in the studio, you need to pay them. I think sometimes people don’t know this. They think that it’s a hobby, so maybe the dancers are just doing it for free or for fun. The dancers do love it, but they also need to be compensated. I lose opportunities to work with dancers often, because my rate isn’t high enough. The dancers can get a higher rate from booking a Broadway show or an Opera than they can working on a show with me. I do feel lucky though, because there are many dancers who really love my process and love what I am doing and they quickly jump at an opportunity to work with me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @michelle_thompson_ulerich

Image Credits

Noel Valero, Rick C, Farid Zarrinabadi, Margherita Andreani, Elyse Mertz, Sam Aslanian