is a Los Angeles-based choreographer, performer and educator with special interest in dance theater and improvisational performance. She has been honored for performance and choreography through organizations including the Lester Horton Awards, the Durfee Foundation, the Santa Barbara Arts Fund and the University of California -Santa Barbara. Since 2001, Nugent has presented seven unique evenings to audiences throughout California, the US and in Italy. At the heart of her work is a collaborative spirit and drive to present live theater that is at once entertaining and socially conscious.
Nugent has had the fortune of working and performing with renown artists/companies including Ririe Woodbury Dance Company, Malashock Dance and Company, Victoria Marks, Keith Johnson, Della Davidson, Inbal Pinto, Abelardo Geomache, Reijo Kella, and Il Kyu Park among others. She has collaborated with celebrated artists/scholars from diverse mediums including composers Robin Cox and Eve Beglarian; Dance Artists Kim Epifano, Shel Wagner Rash, Stefan Fabry, Carmela Herman, Kristen Smiarowski and Lower Left; writer/actors Virginia Grise and Olivia Sandoval; dance film artist Roberta Shaw; visual artist Catherine Siri Nugent, lighting designers Vickie J Scott and Ed Cha; and scholar of feminist and gender studies in Islam, Aysha Hidayatullah.
A dedicated educator, Nugent holds degrees from University of North Carolina School of the Arts and California State University Long Beach. From 2001-2007 she served on faculty at the University of California Santa Barbara, receiving tenure in 2006 and the rank of Associate Professor. Currently, Nugent serves on faculty in the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance, at California Institute of the Arts, teaching Somatic-based Contemporary Dance Technique, Composition and various forms of Improvisation for students in the BFA and MFA programs in dance, as well as gifted movers studying in other areas of the institute. She conducts guest residencies at universities throughout the US, and offers master classes and workshops in contemporary dance and contact improvisation through Nugent Dance, and with colleague and performing partner Shel Wagner Rasch.
Also an advocate for the arts, Nugent serves as Vice President of Iridian Arts Inc. a non-profit whose mission is to support the creation and presentation of adventurous music and multi-media performing arts.