Movers & Shapers Podcast: Samuel Pott

Samuel Pott founded Nimbus Dance Works in 2005 drawing on a deeply held personal belief in the value that the arts can play in bringing people and communities together. Under his direction the company has grown each year adding performances, new repertory, and new community initiatives and projects. Known for creating structured and musical dances that evoke deep-rooted emotional connection, Mr. Pott’s choreography has been shown in New York City and throughout New Jersey, New England and California at venues including the Joyce Theater and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. He has collaborated with many esteemed contemporary artists including composers Daniel Bernard Roumain, Samson Young, Judd Greenstein, Aaron Parks and visual artists Nicola Lopez and Trudy Miller.

A member of the New Jersey State Arts Council’s Arts in Education roster of artists, he has taught dance at the elementary, high school, college, and professional levels and has served on the faculty of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 2012 he founded the School of Nimbus Dance Works, grounded in the belief that dance can serve as a meeting point for diverse communities for growth towards common values and goals. The School makes high quality dance training available to youth throughout Jersey City regardless of financial background. Mr. Pott founded and direets NimbusPresents, a Jersey City performance series featuring local and national perfomers. In 2008 Mr. Pott received a Choreography Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and was named a Distinguished Teaching Artist by the council in 2012. Mr. Pott was one of 25 arts leaders nationally selected for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ (APAP) inaugural Leadership Fellows Program. He serves on the board of directors of Dance New Jersey and on the Arts Advisory Council for the Jersey City Board of Education.

Mr. Pott began his dance training at the University of California, Berkeley, and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1999. As a soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company, his repertoire included such iconic roles as the Husbandman in Appalachian Spring, Agamemnon in Clyemnestra, and Adam in Embattled Garden. In addition to working with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Mr. Pott has performed as a lead dancer with many ballet and contemporary companies including American Repertory Ballet, the Oakland Ballet, the Savage Jazz Dance Company. Featured roles are from a wide range of dance styles and choreographers including works by Marius Petipa, Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Isadora Duncan, Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, and theater directors Robert Wilson and Ann Bogart among many others.