Nancy Thuesen Gell
Nancy received her first training from her mother Barbara Thuesen, founder of Music in Motion®. As a child growing up in a Marine Corps family, she had frequent opportunities for additional study with teachers such as Vergu Cornea, Vija Cunningham, Harvey Hyssell, Madame Alexandra Danilova, Royes Fernandez, and Sallie Wilson. Just before her Junior year in high school.
Nancy was accepted into the North Carolina School for Performing Arts, studying under teachers Robert and Sonia Lindgren, Peter Van Maudin, Duncan Noble, and Nolan Dingman. While still a student, she danced as a founding member of the North Carolina Dance Theater, working with noted choreographers Agnes DeMille, Richard Gain and Duncan Noble.
Upon graduation at age 17, Nancy made her professional debut with the North Carolina Dance Theater. She was discovered there by choreographer Norbert Vesak, who arranged an audition for her at the Joffrey Ballet where she was immediately accepted in the Joffrey II Company.
Over the next 25 years Nancy performed as a principal dancer with Dennis Wayne’s “Dancers”, the Chicago Ballet, Feld Ballet and the Louisville Ballet. During her career, Ms. Thuesen (Gell) performed as a guest artist with many companies in Asia, Europe and the United States. A few of these include the LaScala Opera, Milan, Italy, the Chicago Lyric Opera, New York State Opera, the Milwaukee Ballet, the Chicago Ballet, the Deutch Oper am Rhein, Dusseldorf, Germany, and the Shanghai Ballet, People’s Republic of China.
Ms. Thuesen also performed for the Emperor and Empress Hirohito of Japan and at the United Nations for the World Hunger Project. Throughout her career, Ms. Thuesen continued to study and train with Maggie Black, Madame Gabriella Darvash, Ben Harkavy, and Finis Jung in New York City and Larry Long in Chicago. During those years of training and performing she maintained a strong interest in the transfer of physical information from master teacher to student. In 1993, Nancy relocated to LaGrange with her husband David and began teaching for the LaGrange Ballet.
Although she had not taught young students before, Nancy already had a good deal of experience as a teacher. During her performing years, she was frequently asked to teach company classes and workshops. In 1995, she was promoted to Artistic Director for the LaGrange Ballet and in 1997 she added the duties of School Administrator for the LaGrange School of Ballet.
Throughout that time she continued to train and develop her skills as a teacher and new choreographer. Nancy strongly believes that it was her many opportunities to work with choreographers such as Anthony Tudor, Agnes De Mille, Norman Walker and John Butler (to name a few) combined with the early choreographic training she received from her mother, that have allowed her to develop her own talents as a choreographer.
