How can I be certain that I will receive high-level academics in comparison to other school options?

Nicole Clarke-Springer began formal training under the guidance of Claudette Soltis (Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Joliet Ballet Society) and the Indianapolis Ballet Theatre under Dace Diodonis. She received her B.S. in arts administration-dance from Butler University in Indianapolis, where she was honored as Butler Ballet’s Outstanding Performer.

Shortly after graduating from Butler, Clarke-Springer found her dance home within the Deeply Rooted Dance Theater family—first as an apprentice and later as company member. As a member of DRDT, she had the opportunity to perform with Roberta Flack in Kevin Iega Jeff’s Flack, as well as Jennifer Holiday in the world-renowned Penumbra Theatre’s Black Nativity. She briefly left the company in 2007 to serve as adjunct professor in Western Kentucky University’s Dance Department. While there, she was asked to join the Clifton Brown Dance Company, performing on its tour to Istanbul, Turkey. The same year, Clarke-Springer returned to the Deeply family as program director of its Summer Dance Intensive. During this time, she began deepening her choreographic voice, creating and later setting works including Nine, Dounia, and Femme for the main and second companies. She also served as assistant choreographer to Kevin Iega Jeff for Congo Square Theatre’s Nativity for two years.

In 2013, Clarke-Springer joined Kevin Iega Jeff and Gary Abbott as the newest member of the Deeply Rooted Artistic Team and was named Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s Emerging Choreographer for the program “Generations.” Among the critical responses to her work Hadiya were these thoughts from Lynn Colburn Shapiro, See Chicago Dance:  “a poignant memorial tribute…filled with…ritualistic gestures [that] carry a ceremonial theme…a living eulogy not only for the slain Hadiya Pendleton, but for all children who have lost their lives to violence.” 

In August 2015, she traveled with Deeply Rooted to participate in JOMBA! Dance Festival hosted by Flatfoot Dance Company, where she set her ballet Until Lambs Become Lions on the host company.

In 2016, Clarke-Springer choreographed the opening number for the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Show- Halloween Celebration. She teaches and choreographs throughout the country and has been on faculty as an adjunct professor at Chicago State University and Western Kentucky University and is currently on staff at Northwestern University.

Crediting Deeply Rooted’s mission, Clarke-Springer works to create an environment where artists participate in a process that is not only spiritually affirming but requires open and honest dialogue that leads to self-reflection, constructive feedback, and accountability to the work required. She was appointed Artistic Director of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in September 2019.