Nicole Duffy is a dance director, educator, mentor, and writer from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She danced professionally with the Joffrey Ballet, both in New York and in Chicago, and currently serves as a director and repetiteur for The Gerald Arpino Foundation. She began her training at Ballets de San Juan with Maria Carrera, and made her professional debut with the BSJ company under the direction of Ana Garcia.

While growing up in Puerto Rico, Ms. Duffy danced the ballet classics, gems from the Balanchine repertory, and worked with international guest artists such as Fernando Bujones, Frederic Franklin, Melissa Hayden, and Ivan Nagy. She moved to New York City to further her training at the Joffrey Ballet School and Alvin Ailey.

During her tenure with the Joffrey, Ms. Duffy toured the world dancing leading roles in ballets by Robert Joffrey, Gerald Arpino, Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, Agnes DeMille, Kurt Jooss, José Limon, Vicente Nebrada, and Ruth Page, among others, and danced in all of the Ballets Russes reconstructions. Her contemporary repertory included works by Alonzo King, David Parsons, and Ann Reinking, and she was featured in the original cast of Arpino’s groundbreaking and controversial ballet Billboards, to music by Prince. 

In 2017 Ms. Duffy co-founded and co-directed New York Dance Project, a preprofessional company that launches dancers into the professional world. She is a Visiting Artist at Barnard College, has taught at Marymount Manhattan and the Harlem School of the Arts, and guest teaches at STEPS on Broadway, nationally, internationally, and virtually. She continues to stage the ballets of Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, and especially enjoys teaching the Ballet Hispanico company and her students at the BH School of Dance.