1930–2025
Nancy Smith Fichter, an unstoppable and unforgettable force in the dance world for many decades, passed away on Friday, February 21, 2025, after a short illness. She was 94.
NASD was the beneficiary of her interest and participation from its organization and founding, all the way into its young maturity. She served as President from 1982 to 1985, the first to serve a full term following the 1981–1982 organizational year. Subsequently, she held seats on the Committee on Nominations from 1985 to 1991 and the Commission on Accreditation from 1993 to 1996. She played substantial leadership roles in developing NASD accreditation standards, in bringing professional studio schools and college and university dance programs together to pursue common interests, and in representing NASD nationally in government and higher education contexts. In a few seconds, she established the seriousness and integrity of her field wherever she went and whenever she spoke, a lady who couldn’t be bested.
Nancy Smith Fichter made it clear she was centered in creation and artistry. This centering enabled all else, she believed. She loved art making, but also the idea of art, the open possibility, beautiful thoughts of more and different that flowed freely if one had faith that they would never stop. This valuing resonated in her phrase, “Just do it with love.”
Artistry and faith were a foundation for compelling excellence, for building institutions, for sustaining work over decades, for maintaining patience and helping others to do the same, and for developing student talents and helping individual dancers grow and flourish. In 1964, by invitation, Nancy Smith Fichter founded the current art-based dance program at Florida State University and poured her many gifts and aspirations into nurturing the school on many fronts. She was and still is seen as a historic late twentieth century leader in professional dance education and training, as well as a powerful choreographic artist influenced initially by Martha Graham and other modern dance pioneers.
A native of Northern Florida, Nancy grew up surrounded by the gentle flow of Southern graciousness. She majored in English at Florida State, but spent summers studying modern dance in New York. Intellectually and personally, she melded the sophistications of both places, an older, quieter style with a new, anxious, and thrusting one. When NASD was only an idea, the forms of graciousness and sophistication she carried so effectively and her high reputation among her colleagues made critical contributions to the initiative’s success. The association and the field of dance are fortunate not only for her achievements, but also for her example as a practitioner and citizen of dance. And for her words, her sense of humor—“Weapons of Mass Instruction”—and her beautifully wrought speeches that always, in some form, connected dance and the people of dance to something ineffable far beyond themselves.
May she know of our gratitude as she rests in peace.