Meet Nat Wilson | Dance Artist-dancer, teacher, choreographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nat Wilson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nat, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I’ve taken a ton of risks throughout my career. Growing up, I trained almost exclusively in classical ballet, and when I was 19, I decided to change my focus to work in contemporary dance. It’s common for contemporary dancers to attend college to study dance, but not at all common for ballet dancers. So, I had missed the standard window to apply to colleges for dance, and mentally, I felt I was ready to start my professional career. I showed up to a lot of auditions with little relevant experience and a lot of passion.

When I was freshly 21, I auditioned for a company in Israel, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company. I’m not Jewish and had no previous ties to anyone in the area. Even though I had been working in contemporary dance for a couple years, the audition process kicked my ass, and I realized how much I hadn’t even known that I didn’t know. The director told me to my face that he was taking a risk in hiring me, but was willing to take a chance. In a matter of 2-3 weeks, I quit my job in Chicago, got out of my lease, gave my cats to my ex who had once been their co-parent, kind of broke up with my kind of boyfriend, packed up all the belongings, and moved to start a new life in a country where I knew no one and didn’t speak the language. The first 6 months I was there was a trial by fire; every day I was told how I wasn’t up to the standard and wasn’t ready to perform. But I believed in myself and relied on the other dancers in the company for support, and a year later I was performing solo roles with the company and teaching ballet to the company and its schools.

When I was 24, I made a similar choice but in reverse. I have so much love for KCDC and everything it gave me, but at the time, I needed a change of pace. I tried to find another full-time, salaried dance job, but nothing was really panning out. So, I made the choice to bet on myself and move to New York City to pursue a freelance career. I had a couple friends in New York, but no one with professional connections who could help me get a job in dance. Moving to New York without a job is already a risk in itself, but I also had the bizarre luck to move there in January in 2020. In the two months before the COVID-19 lockdowns began, I managed to get a day job at a 7-Eleven and booked two freelance dance gigs. When lockdowns began, I found myself entirely without the career I’ve dedicated my life to, but still going to work in the middle of the most chaotic days of COVID. And at a time when many people left New York or moved back home with their families, I chose to stay in New York because I knew that would be my path towards the career I want, no matter what roadblocks were in my way.

In the fall of 2021, I came to Los Angeles to do a project with a company formerly based here called ate9 Dance Company. I immediately fell in love with Los Angeles, and spent most of a year trying to be bi-coastal and build a dance career here. Ultimately, I kept being offered more consistent work in New York, so I never made the plunge to move here. But, despite that investment not paying off immediately, it’s now starting to pay off in a huge way. I’ve recently become certified to teach Yue Yin’s FoCo Technique, being one of the first two people to get the certification. FoCo Technique is a movement practice that blends her experience studying Chinese folk dance while growing up in Shanghai with her experience with Western contemporary dance while living and working in New York. Now that I have the authority to teach this incredibly rich and fulfilling movement practice, I’ve been able to use all the contacts that I made while trying to live here as dancer to put together a successful trip as a dance teacher. I’ve taught for youth programs, colleges, and a professional dance company, as well as run classes that are open to the public. And, looking forward, I’m going to be able to use my professional connections in Chicago and overseas to keep turning this certification into a viable source of income.

When I think about taking risks, I always think it’s worth it. Because in my experience, even the risks that don’t pay off immediately often turn into the seeds of future successes.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
As I described in the panel question about risk, it was certainly not easy for me to get where I am today. Like so many dancers, I’ve faced tons of rejections from auditions and had choreographers and directors tell me I’m not good enough. I also moved across the Atlantic Ocean twice, leaving my professional connections and emotional support systems behind. I fought through the COVID-19 lockdowns in New York, pushing past the loneliness and doubt to build the community and career I have there and here in Los Angeles.

Part of what defines me as an artist is my drive to rise to a challenge. A lesson my mom instilled in me from a young age was to never be the first person to tell yourself “no.” Other people might not have stayed in organizations where they felt hostility from the managers, and many other people didn’t stay in New York throughout COVID. But I saw the value in all of the places that tried, in one way or another, to make it hard for me to be there, and my drive to rise to the challenges they set for me is the foundation of my success.

This attitude extends to the act of dancing as well. Across my career, I’ve always been the dancer who travels the farthest and enjoys pushing their body to the limit. FoCo Technique is also a highly physical practice; inside a class you dance for most of an hour without stopping, and inside that aerobic effort, you need to stay mentally present enough to maintain clarity and form. I find this challenge slightly addicting, and it’s such a joy for me to keep working inside the exhaustion. I find that inside the exhaustion and effort, my mind becomes very clear and I’m able to focus solely on what’s in front of me: the movement.

I can attribute part of my success as a dancer to my drive to think like a choreographer. From a young age, I’ve been interested in creating movement as well as dancing it. Even when my skills weren’t up to par with my ambitions, I was able to stand out to choreographers by not just doing what I was told, but trying to see what they were imagining and bring that vision to life. This drive to see the choreographer’s vision beyond only my part in it is now bringing me new success as I can apply that vision to my teaching in creating compelling movement for students, and as I begin to think about developing a career as a choreographer.

In all my dance work, teaching, dancing, and choreographing, my goal is to set the bar as high as possible, and enjoy the thrill of clearing the hurdle. Everything I do includes an element of physical challenge and test of stamina. Sometimes, this can be my downfall as well as my strength; I’ve been saying for years that subtlety and modesty my forte, and so what I do isn’t to everyone’s tastes. But I firmly believe in the virtue of ambition, of going for what you want and letting the cards fall where they may. It’s what I’ve been doing for years, and it’s what’s given me the chance to perform and teach around the world, and hopefully soon present my own work as well.

What I really want people to know about me is that all my talk of challenge is, to me, really talk of empowerment. FoCo Technique is hard, but it’s in rising to the challenge that you learn about yourself and learn how much you are truly capable of achieving. I never set a goal for myself or others to make someone fail. Failure happens, and it’s part of life. But I set ambitious goals because that’s fundamentally how I believe we all grow and learn to love ourselves more as human beings.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
As much as I love the Americana of the Santa Monica Boardwalk, for me the best beach in LA county is Long Beach. It’s just far enough away from Los Angeles that it’s quiet, but the drive is really quite manageable. The beach is so open that it rarely feels crowded, and from anywhere on the beach you’re only a 5-10 minute walk from a cute restaurant. And for my community, there’s actually quite a few gay bars down there too!

I know this is also a popular opinion, but York St in Highland Park is also hard to beat for a lunch and afternoon walk around. East LA will always have a piece of my heart.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
First, I would have to thank my parents, who always supported my dream to dance long before my skills developed to meet my ambition. My first dance teacher, Wendi DuBois, who provided excellent ballet training and mentorship throughout my youth, and who in many ways is the reason I could become a professional dancer at all. Rami Be’er, the artistic director of Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, who grew to give me incredible trust and whose company allowed me to tour the globe for performances, creating memories I’ll never forget.

Of course I need to shout out my current boss Yue Yin, with whom I’ve not only developed a great relationship with as a dancer, but as an instructor of her technique which is propelling my career forward in ever more exciting ways. She is a constant inspiration and valued friend.

And I also have to give endless love and recognition to my partner, Doron Perk, who manages to support me and help me see through my own bull while managing his own career in dance as choreographer and Artistic Director of More Fish Dance Company. There’s no one else I would rather come home to.

Instagram: @natattax

Image Credits
First photo (personal photo: Sarah Kate Stolz, courtesy of YYDC.

In order uploaded:
Ricardo Garcia
Joan Dwiartanto
Michael Waldrop, courtesy of YYDC
Alice Chacon, courtesy of YYDC
Tania Palomeque
Joan Dwiartanto

Please reach out for additional info and to confirm proper crediting