We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nancy D Owen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nancy D, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

This is such a funny topic for me. I feel as if I have started EVERYTHING too late. I started dance, classical ballet, at age 14, much older than most girls, yet I was working professionally only a few years later. Would my trajectory have been clearer had I started earlier? Probably. I would have probably taken a more traditional path: conservatory to company. Since I started later, I did not go to as many big summer programs and company schools as might have been ideal. That stated, I still spent a summer at a ballet intensive and another at the renowned Jacob’s Pillow. I also went to college, though I did so on my own terms, graduating from UC Irvine in a total of two years instead of four, and taking time to dance with ballet companies along the way. I didn’t move to NY until a year after college graduation, opting to work with Alonzo King and Richard Gibson in San Francisco to further build up my professional aptitude. When I went to Joffrey Ballet the following year, I felt a little older but ready. When I joined The Phantom of the Opera, I was actually younger than many of my colleagues, which was a first for me!

I had to catch up once again to break into the LA commercial and television dance world. Though I joined Actors Equity at 20, and both SAG and AFTRA (then separate unions) before moving to LA, I was treated like a novice because most of my experience was on stage or in concert halls prior. I had a few commercials and short films on my resumé but not much else.

I started choreographing very late in my career, only when I moved to Los Angeles in 2008. So, once again found myself competing with artists who had been working their craft for 10-15 years longer than I had. I had to learn quickly and be hungry for information. I don’t think I have caught up, but I have created work that I am proud of.

Then, I entered academia as an adjunct in 2014. I did not earn my MFA until 2022, and entered the university world much later than many of my colleagues. However, I also have years of professional experience under my belt and a perspective that is much broader and, in my opinion, can be more helpful to my students, than someone who followed a direct academic path from BFA to MFA to professor. My writing career also took off a little later, around the same time.

Though there are always “what ifs,” on most days I don’t regret my path.

Nancy D, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a dance professional, with a long career in dance companies, musical theater, television, film, and commercials. I am a choreographer for both stage and film and write for numerous dance publications. I began my academic career as an adjunct and moved into a full-time professor role in 2021. I am currently an assistant professor of dance at Southern Utah University, although I remain dedicated to my career in Los Angeles, and return to work during breaks and over the summer.

I have held almost every title in production: performer, choreographer, director, casting agent, wardrobe, producer, art director/art designer, and assistant to each of those positions. I love creating meaningful, socially relevant work that inspires conversation and action. I believe in art as activism and that our duty as artists is to disrupt the status quo and to create a world to believe in.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

We are in a very perilous time. People are under attack. The arts need to be a place of resistance, freedom, inclusion, equity, and protest. Throughout history, artists have brought light and clarity into places of oppression and destruction. We have been the canaries calling out injustice. We have also been victims of those forces. This is happening now and our communities need to fight back. As the federal government cuts funding, increases censorship and discrimination, seeks to destroy diverse and vibrant communities, and undermines the very bedrock ideals that the nation was founded on, even if the nation never reached those lofty goals, the arts and artists are at the forefront of resistance. Local communities need to stand behind and support us. If the NEA won’t support East West Players, then local businesses need to step up. If the state won’t fund historically Black dance companies like Lula Washington and Jazz Antiqua, we as patrons and dance lovers need to step up. But, it is not only money. It is visibility, it is community engagement, it is calling your representatives, going to protests, creating art that stands up for and includes the Trans community, the Latino community, immigrant communities, Indigenous communities. The benefits of a thriving arts community are well documented economically and socially. It is up to us all to find ways, despite challenges, to help it thrive.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I sometimes think that non-creatives perceive our work as “fun,” “cute,” or a hobby. We are passionate about our work and often chose it when we were quite young, but creative work is essential in a healthy community. We work incredibly hard, often seven days a week. The arts contribute over a TRILLION dollars to the US economy annually. Arts education nurtures critical creative thinking, augments STEM learning, and engages students with different learning modalities. Many of our greatest innovators in math, science, and engineering studied fine arts at the university. Creative industries are essential to our overall well-being as a society. We will do best when they are as supported and well funded as math and science. Furthermore, art education needs to be world-based. A curriculum based solely on the work of Western European creatives is, aside from being discriminatory and short-sighted, incomplete.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nancydobbsowen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nancydobbsowen/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nancydobbsowen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancydobbsowen/
• Other: https://bsky.app/profile/nancydobbsowen.bsky.social

  https://www.threads.net/@nancydobbsowen

Image Credits

Headshot: Joanna Degeneres
Jumping Dance Shot: Michael Higgins
Kicking Dance Shot: Michael Higgins
Selfie from Set: Ratched, Netflix 2019
Ballet shot: Weiferd Watts