Nicole L Olson

Nicole L Olson, Artistic Director of NicoleOlson|MovementChaos, has presented work nationally in such venues as the Kennedy Center in DC, the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in Chicago, and the TBA Festival in Portland, OR.  Her choreography has been seen in The Phoenix Theatre Company’s “Evita” and “Once” and several productions for Stray Cat Theatre. Along with creating works and being a member of numerous production teams, Nicole has been a soloist with Frances Cohen’s Center Dance Ensemble, Dulce Dance, Liliana Gomez Dance, and serves as Assistant Director for Scorpius Dance Theatre. She has toured internationally, both with the above listed companies and as an independent artist. Alternative spaces are her focus; creating for Phoenix Art Museum, SMoCA, galleries throughout Phoenix, and nine evening length pieces for the internationally-awarded Canal Convergence ’18-’23, presented by Scottsdale Public Art. She, alongside her husband, video artist Rembrandt Quiballo, has created numerous Dance Film and Dance Video projects, presenting at such venues as the Arizona Drive-In Dance Film Festival and the Boulder and Beyond Dance Festival. This past year, Nicole had the unique opportunity to work with Dr. Vinodh Nayaranan for Phoenix BioScience’s Artis and Researcher’s Project Cohort 2. She created a dance film inspired by Dr. Nayaranan’s lifetime work with Retts Syndrome. The piece, titled “The Mirror”, is touring the state of AZ, currently on exhibition at the Burton Barr Library in Phoenix. She has had the great pleasure of teaching children and adults nationally, and is currently the Head of the Performing Arts Department at Metropolitan Arts Institute. This past year, she lead a project through Scottsdale Public Art facilitating two site-specific works for Scottsdale Community College Dance Department, to be presented at Canal Convergence ’23. Olson was awarded the Phoenix Mayor’s Arts Award for Dance in 2016, the Arizoni Award in Choreography in 2006, along with Phoenix New Times’ “Best Dancer, 2016” and “Best Collaboration, 2018”. In 2020, Nicole was awarded 1st Runner-Up for Artlink Phoenix’s Annual Juried Exhibition, along with an Arizona Commission on the Arts Research and Development Grant. This past summer, she was awarded the 2023 Daffy Award in recognition of a Lifetime of Service to Dance as an Art Form.