Stephanie Nugent (Artistic Director) is a choreographer, performer and educator with special interest in dance theater and improvisational dance forms.  She holds degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts and California State University -Long Beach.

Her choreography has been presented at venues across the US and in Italy since 1991 earning critical praise in the Los Angeles Times, Dance Magazine, and New York Times among others. She has been honored with awards including, a Lester Horton Award for her performance and creative collaboration in Victoria Mark's Against Ending, the 2002 Individual Artist Award for Choreography from the Santa Barbara Arts Fund, a Junior Faculty Fellowship, several research grants from the University of California, and eight 2006 Lester Horton Award nominations for her choreography, performance and costume designs with NUGENT DANCE.

Since moving to California in 1997, Stephanie has collaborated with west-coast artists, including choreographer/improvisers Kim Epifano, Stefan Fabry, Carmela Hermann, Kristen Smiarowski and Shel Wagner Rasch, visual/media artists Erin Martinez and Catherine Siri Nugent, and composers Eve Beglarian, and duo – Skin and Bones. For the past twelve years, she has also co-created on numerous projects with her husband, composer/violinist Robin Cox, both as individual artists and with their respective groups NUGENT DANCE and the Robin Cox Ensemble.

Ms. Nugent is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she has served on faculty since fall 2001. In January 2008, she will leave UCSB to join the faculty at California Institute of the Arts, where she will continue to specialize in teaching modern dance techniques, improvisation, contact improvisation, and dance composition. 

Nugent’s history as a performer includes work with internationally renown companies/ choreographers including Keith Johnson / Dancers, Victoria Marks, Della Davidson Dance, Eun Jung Gonzalez, Inbal Pinto, Malashock Dance and Company, Ririe Woodbury Dance Company, Scott Wells, Suzanna Tambuti, Abelardo Geomache, and Reijo Kella among others.

She has taught master classes and workshops at Velocity Dance Center (WA), UCLA, University of Montana, Meredith College (NC), Los Angeles High School for the Performing Arts, Berea College (KY), Minnesota State University -Mankato, and Orange Coast College. She has served on the faculties of University of California –Santa Barbara, California State University -Long Beach, Orange County High School for the Performing Arts, Cerritos College, Rio Hondo College, Citrus College and was a member of the teacher’s pool for Sunday night Contact Improvisation at Dance Home in Santa Monica, CA.  

From 1995 through 1996 Stephanie was Chair of the dance program at the North Carolina Governor’s School, where she was involved in a unique summer program focused on introducing academically gifted high school students from all regions of North Carolina to concepts and issues of the Twentieth Century.  This program, which is often a formative experience for the students, was also highly influential in the development of Nugent’s perspective on the role of progressive and artistic education in contemporary society.

Performance History