Career Transition With Nora Brown

Nora Brown was born in Boston, completing her training at the Boston Ballet School, North Carolina School of the Arts and Manhattan Youth Ballet. She then went on to perform with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Ballett Dortmund, Ballett im Revier, and danced seven seasons with Gauthier Dance: Theaterhaus Stuttgart. Later during her master’s studies, she danced as a freelancer with Aszure Barton & Artists and Cie. La Ronde in Switzerland. During her career, Nora had the privilege to work in creation with choreographers such as Sharon Eyal, Marcos Morau, Marco Goecke, Cayetano Soto, Marie Chouinard, Bridget Breiner, Cathy Marston, Shahar Binyamini, Nadav Zelner and Nacho Duato. She also had the pleasure of performing soloist roles in various works from Ohad Naharin, Mauro Bigonzetti, David Dawson, and George Balanchine, amongst others. 

In addition to her dance career, Nora also holds a bachelor’s in art history and recently completed a master’s degree in curating at the Zurich University of the Arts. She has curated several performances at the OnCurating Project Space in Zurich and is the curator and founder of the contemporary dance project “What’s Dance Got To Do With It”.

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You’ve just finished a master’s degree in curating at the Zurich University of the Arts. Could you outline the path that led you there?

Nora Brown: I pursued a master's degree in curating to transition from dancing as a full-time profession towards a new future. I chose curating because it seemed like a natural progression from my bachelor's degree in art history. Since I completed that degree in 2013 before my dance career in Europe, it seemed like a good platform to reconnect with both theoretical and practical knowledge in the art world, where I would be in an experimental learning environment. I also wanted to explore the intersection of visual arts practices and exhibition spaces with dance, which also can extend to reconfiguring the presentational formats in which we experience dance.

I gather the bachelor's was done overlapping with your dance career back then?

Nora: Exactly. While I was doing my bachelor's, I also worked part-time at the Metropolitan Opera and with some small dance companies in New York City.

The arts are incredibly rich in diversity and possibilities, allowing us to explore and collaborate across many different fields.

How was that overlap in terms of time management?

Nora: It was quite challenging, but it almost felt like an extension of high school for me. Balancing a full load of schoolwork with late afternoons and evenings rehearsing and performing felt familiar. The university was very accommodating and great at supporting  me in my artistic pursuits.

Now you’ve made your master’s the priority, but you have continued dancing, right? 

Nora: Yes. It's funny because when I started my master's, I thought I would focus solely on it since I couldn't do that much during my bachelor's. But somehow, I've ended up dancing again and finding other jobs. So, it naturally overlaps once more, though on a different scale.

You've also been working in a gallery. Has it been helpful to get a taste for “the real thing” alongside your studies?

Nora: Definitely. I've learned a great deal during my time there. Since the gallery has a small team, I've been able to work across many different areas, such as communications, funding, visitor and curator relations, graphic design, and event planning. It's a lot of responsibility and has been a significant learning curve, as the day-to-day tasks at the gallery are very different from those in dance. In the past, I completed internships at different galleries, a museum, and an art fair in New York. However, this was all before my full-time dance career. So, it's also been a process of returning to, I'd say, office life.

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How did you know it was time to step away from being a full time dancer in that kind of traditional company model?

Nora: Of course it’s challenging because it’s such a big decision for us as dancers. One of the main factors was the physical pain I was experiencing. I had knee surgery in 2018, which was a tough recovery, and other injuries continued to emerge. When I dance, I always give 100 percent in the studio and on stage, but constantly dealing with these injuries prevented me from realising this. Additionally, as a dancer, your body is your only instrument. When you're not able to use it to perform, I often felt frustrated or powerless, unable to accomplish my goals.

Had you always wished to remain connected to the arts in some way after your full time dance career?

Nora: Yes, I think I've always been drawn to creative practices, whether it was taking visual arts classes in school, visiting museums, or crafting dance performances. It’s one of the things I’ve always known about myself, and this connection to the arts has always been a source of motivation and joy for me. Without that strong connection, I think choosing another career path would have been much more daunting. The arts are incredibly rich in diversity and possibilities, allowing us to explore and collaborate across many different fields, such as dance, music, film, costume, set and lighting design, graphic design, visual arts, and architecture. I believe curating is a fantastic platform that enables this kind of multidisciplinary reach.

Do you think the process was less intimidating because you had that existing passion?

Nora: Exactly. I think I wouldn't have known where to begin otherwise. When you follow a thread, things develop, and you find what you like and what you don't. You just have to pick it up and start.

What skill sets have you been able to transfer from dance to curating?

Nora: As an overarching theme, I would say the sense of dedication and commitment translates well. This dedication helps you succeed in other careers. Also, the process of working together to meet a common goal is similar. When you're dancing, you rehearse together to put on a show, supporting each other during performances and the process. In other fields, you also experience this teamwork, whether it's putting on an exhibition or working collectively to achieve a goal.

...One’s identity is so closely linked to being a dancer. You have to go through a transformative process to reform your relationship with your body and redefine your goals. This process is ongoing and not necessarily linear, so it’s always a good reminder to be gentle with yourself.

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How did you face any fears or uncertainties connected to a career change?

Nora: It's always challenging when faced with the need to withdraw from a world and reality we've been so enmeshed in since a very young age. The dedication and passion needed to pursue a dance career is immense, so stepping away from that is no small feat. I felt very fortunate for the wonderful opportunities that I had at Gauthier Dance and Ballett im Revier, which enabled me to work with many inspiring choreographers and tour to places I had dreamed of. Leaving this group of people that felt like family was difficult, though it was reassuring to continue to encounter and stay connected with this network in new ways.

Even though I had a clear path in mind to continue working within the arts, I still dealt with issues of identity, not only in terms of my day-to-day reality, but also with my body, as one’s identity is so closely linked to being a dancer. You have to go through a transformative process to reform your relationship with your body and redefine your goals. This process is ongoing and not necessarily linear, so it’s always a good reminder to be gentle with yourself.

Aside from selecting artworks to be displayed in an exhibition, what does a curator do? What does the job look like from the inside?

Nora: The role of a curator can vary greatly depending on the organisation, whether it's a gallery or museum, and whether it's commercially driven or not. In general, I think of curating more as a form of connection and collaboration. It's a way to connect artists with others and to introduce them to new audiences. This involves a research phase, reaching out to artists, and planning exhibitions. Depending on the size of the organisation, you might also handle technical tasks, such as installing artworks - sometimes I’m there with a drill, putting artwork on the wall. It also involves taking care of promotional activities, like managing social media. Curating helps us rethink our perceived identities and the politics behind knowledge production, allowing us to investigate various sources and envision new possibilities.

Time for a “big” question: why, in your opinion, are the arts so important in society? What can we do to support continued engagement in the arts?

Nora: I believe the arts have the unique ability to bring society together in ways that cannot be expressed with words, enabling us to communicate both emotional and intellectual experiences in new ways. This ultimately gives us a deeper understanding of humanity, allowing us to learn more about others and ourselves. By recognising where these intersections are, we can gain a better understanding of the human condition and explore how we can move forward together. To support continued engagement in the arts, I think grants play a crucial role. Unfortunately, funding is always a challenge, but it's essential to have grant processes and funding mechanisms in place, which hopefully should also be able to grow and continue supporting artists and their projects.

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Tell me about “What's Dance”, the contemporary dance program you've recently launched.

Nora: "What's Dance" was part of my master's thesis project. I conceived it as a dance festival that aimed to open up new audiences to dance, especially those who might not typically visit the theatre. It was important to me that all programming was free, ensuring accessibility for everyone. The program included two immersive dance performances, an exhibition, free dance classes, and a talk.

Switzerland has a thriving dance community, so I also wanted to connect different generations within that community. The exhibition featured archival dance videos from the Swiss Foundation of the Performing Arts, allowing us to remember previous generations and their contributions and processes. The performances involved current dancers from the Zurich dance scene, who performed on the central stairway of the Toni Areal building, moving up the staircase over 35 minutes with live and recorded music. The performance took place during the opening of the diploma show, where each department showcased their master's or bachelor's thesis work. It was wonderful to see how many people we could engage with the performance as it progressed.

For the performance, I collaborated with Rebeka Mondovics, a choreographer in the master's program at ZHDK. She was fantastic to work with, and she found creative ways to involve the architecture in her movements. It was a great experience overall.

What are the dance projects you’ve been doing since you retired from a full-time company? Did you get involved because you missed it?

Nora: Originally, I had planned to stop dancing completely, but I'm grateful that I received an opportunity to dance for a project with Aszure Barton that came up between semesters. This helped me find a way to return to dance on a smaller scale and open my mind to future collaborations. It made me realise that retiring doesn't have to be a black-and-white or binary process. You can also phase out the intensity and time commitment of what you're doing. Later on I also worked with Cie. La Ronde, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other opportunities might come. However, it still is challenging to navigate the balance between maintaining the physicality to perform and working in other areas like curating in the gallery, which involves a lot of desk work. I'm still figuring out how these worlds intermingle.

Do you have any other advice for dancers who are considering a career transition or are about to embark on this journey?

Nora: What helped me was understanding myself and knowing my interests, and experimenting with those while still dancing. For example, if you think you might want to be a choreographer, try choreographing something while you're still dancing. Or if you're interested in management, get some experience in that area. I've seen other dancers do this as well. It's beneficial to get a taste of other options and have a supportive environment to explore them while you're still within the safety net of company life. I believe that's sound advice. It can be intimidating, but going through this process can help take some of those fears away. 

^{Top image courtesy of Zurich Art Weekend 2024. Photo by Rapahël Renaux}