MSP 189: Amber Sloan

PODCAST 189: Amber Sloan

Release Date: 11.20.25

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A Life in Dance with Amber Sloan

Episode 189: Show Notes.

Amber Sloan’s life in dance has unfolded through curiosity, community, and constant reinvention. Growing up in Virginia, her early exposure to improvisation and composition in high school sparked not just a love of movement but a way of thinking that would shape her future. Her time at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign deepened that foundation and connected her with the people and places that helped her put down artistic roots. From piecing together income through unexpected jobs, including one for Harvey Keitel’s wife, to choreographing for the Joyce SoHo and seeking to scale her work in the years leading up to the pandemic, Amber has never shied away from the uncomfortable or the uncertain. She’s navigated performance anxiety, surgery and recovery, and the challenge of being involved in many facets of the dance world, from performing with David Parker to presenting work through platforms like Women in Motion. Today, with recent pieces like her show at Kestrels (set to return next year), she continues to build a career that defies the assumptions people often make about a life in dance. At the heart of it all is a simple, lasting dream: to keep exploring alongside the dancers who move her work forward. Thanks for listening.

Key Points From This Episode:

Amber Sloan’s upbringing in Virginia and her introduction to dance.
How early experiences of improv and composition in high school shaped her career.
Continuing her dance journey at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
How the connections she made while studying helped her develop roots in dance.
Working various jobs to pay the bills, including a role for Harvey Keitel’s wife.
Choreographing for the Joyce SoHo.
Making an effort to do her work in a bigger way pre-pandemic.
Navigating performance anxiety and doing what is uncomfortable.
Being involved in many different areas of dance.
How a 2015 surgery and recovery impacted Amber’s career.
Dancing for David Parker: rehearsals, footwork, and more.
Amber’s presenting work, including Women in Motion and more.
Recent work including a show at Kestrels which will show again next year.
Why a life in dance is often not what you might expect.
Her ultimate dream for her work: to keep exploring with her dancers.

ABOUT Amber

Amber Sloan is a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellow whose work has been presented across the United States, Mexico City, Mexico, and locally at venues including Kestrels, Arts On Site, Roulette Theater, Dixon Place, 92Y Harkness Dance Center, Art House Productions, South Orange PAC, Smush Gallery, the EstroGenius Festival, and in a 21-year commissioning relationship with the DanceNow Festival. She was a Monira Foundation Performance Resident at Mana Contemporary, an Artist in Residence at Union Street Dance, an Emerging New Jersey Commissioned Choreographer for Dance on the Lawn, and a Schonberg Fellow at The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard. She has been awarded space grants from Gibney Dance Center, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Spoke the Hub, and her work has been annually supported by the Jerome Robbins Foundation since 2009.

As a performer, Amber has been a member of The Bang Group since 2002, and has performed in works by Doug Elkins, Keely Garfield, Sara Hook, Stephan Koplowitz, and James Waring, as staged by Richard Colton. She serves on the faculty of the Ailey School as the dance composition teacher for the Professional Division program. She has been a guest teacher at Marymount Manhattan College, DeSales University, Muhlenberg College, Holy Cross, Salem State, American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive, Boston Ballet Summer Program, The Yard, Gibney Dance Center, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

Amber is the Assistant Executive Director of Arts On Site, a women-led nonprofit organization founded in 2016 to support artists and build community. She co-directs Women in Motion NYC, an organization whose mission is to foster female choreographers through the commissioning of new work, producing, and mentoring, and she serves on the advisory board of Art Omi: Dance. Amber holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was honored with the Beverly Blossom/Carey Erickson Alumni Dance Award.

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