Nancy Mittleman, Director
Originally from New York, director, Nancy Mittleman, has over 45 years of directing, teaching, acting and dance expertise. She has performed on both east and west coasts and studied with such luminaries as Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Leslie Watanabe, Jamey Hampton, Daniel Lewis, Alwin Nikolais Dance Co., Percival Borde, Pearl Primus, Armgard von Bardeleben, Richard Haisma, Bela Lewitsky and the NYC Ballet. Mittleman also does choreography and acts with Red Octopus Theater Co and other local companies, including playing the roles of Ophelia in “Hamlet”, Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Helena in “All’s Well That Ends Well”. Mittleman also has a degree in anthropology and plays Double Bass.
Mittleman has considerable experience teaching movement and theater in the schools, including 17 years serving as an Artist-In-Residence in Oregon and B.C. Canada. She has also worked for over 30 years on committees to integrate the arts into the curriculum of Oregon schools. Living in a coastal community with a rich Native American heritage, Mittleman also ran summer theater programs, which developed original scripts integrating marine biology, NW Native American studies and theater. In 1990 Mittleman received the Honor Award form the Oregon Dance Association for “History in the Making” from the Oregon Dance Association.
Students of her school of dance, Newport School of Artistic Movement have gone on to study and perform at Juilliard in New York City, Mark Morris Dance Group, San Diego Dance Theater, Paco Gnomes and Co., Chris Elam & Co., Headwaters Dance Co., Cornish College for the Arts, California Institute for the Arts, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Limon Company, Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and the Eugene Ballet to name a few.