Nancy Louise Spanier

Nancy Louise Spanier (born December 29, 1942) is an American dancer, choreographer, artistic director, filmmaker and educator. Her body of choreographic works includes pieces commissioned internationally by museums, universities, dance companies and foundations. She is the founder of the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado, a repertory company known for its highly theatrical and imagistic performances that explore themes through the integration of sculpture, props, and film. Spanning her career, she has incorporated a variety of performance genres and has collaborated, among others, with award-winning playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie, and Anaïs Nin, who documented Spanier's performance in her last diary. Spanier is a professor emerita at the University of Colorado, Boulder where she taught dance from 1969 to 2003.

Education and early career Born and raised in New York City, Spanier began dancing at the age of four with Blanche Evan. At the age of 11, her choreography was presented at Carnegie Hall. She trained at the American School of Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, The Juilliard School, the Martha Graham School, the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College and studied with Louis Horst, José Limón, Anna Sokolow, Charles Weidman and Joseph Pilates. She attended Professional Children's School and received her B.A. degree in Dramatic Literature from Middlebury College in 1964 and her M.A. degree in Dance from Mills College in 1969. At an early age she performed with José Limón's company in Doris Humphrey’s Day on Earth, with Pearl Lang Dance Theater, and with Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company. In 1968 she performed in Duke Ellington’s Second Sacred Concert at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco with the Xoregos Dance Company.

Professional career In 1974 she formed the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado. Spanier also worked internationally as a freelance choreographer and director with theatre and dance companies in the United States and Europe. In the mid-80s Spanier disbanded the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado and changed its name to Performance Inventions to reflect a broadening context for her work.

She has collaborated with playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie, who performed in her Flesh Chronicles physical theatre piece. She was the choreographer of van Itallie's play The Traveller which had its premiere at The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Spanier was a professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado Boulder for 34 years. During this period she founded her own school, The Dancecentre and directed the Movement Program at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts' National Theatre Conservatory. She guest taught at Naropa University, Stockholm's Statens Dansskola, Sweden's Lansteatern, Denmark's Aarhus Teater Skole, Copenhagen's Dansens Hus, Bali's Indonesian Institute of the Arts, and New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

She was granted a Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts as well the first Creative Fellowship in Choreography from the Colorado Council on the Arts. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Emily Harvey Foundation Artist Residency in Venice, Italy.

Selected works In Splendid Unison, 2017 Post Op, 2014 Contemplations at 70, 2012 Of Memory, 2011 Le Jardinier de la Gafferie, 2010 Flesh Sites, 2007 Envolée, 2004 Echos, Esprits et Traces dans l’ancien Hospice de Hautefort, 2002 Flesh Chronicles, 1988 Fatal Attraction, 1985 Tribes, 1985 Migration: Heat of Angels, 1984 Spheres of Influence, 1984 Eternal Rendezvous: A Trilogy, 1983 Maiden Forms, 1982 Pageant in Passage, 1981 Triptych, 1981 High Country: A Celebration, 1980 Side by Side and Inside, 1979 Arena: A Documentary in Five Rounds, 1978 Canti d’Innocenza, 1977 Show on Earth, 1976 Abundance, 1976 Peak to Peak, 1975 A Peep Show: For Women Only, 1974 Time Wounds All Heals, 1973 Glass Camellias, 1972 Mauvais Jeu, 1971 Parched Plain, 1969

Books Larisa Oancea, Nancy Spanier: The Arc of a Dancing Life, Performance Inventions, 2021.