Exclusive Interview  •  Musical Theater & Commercial  •  Where Are They Now

Lucy Mangion: From a Melbourne Dance Class to the Broadway Dream

When she first spoke with Dance Mogul Magazine, a girl from Australia who started dancing "later than most" was standing at the edge of a new life in New York. Here is that conversation — and where the dream has carried her since.

By Dance Mogul Magazine  |  Originally featured May 2024  |  Updated & expanded 2026

Lucy Mangion. Photo: Jon Taylor.

Some dancers grow up certain of the spotlight. Lucy Mangion was one of them — she says she announced her ambition before she could even walk. What makes her story resonate with Dance Mogul Magazine's readers isn't precocious certainty, though. It's what she did with a late start, a competitive home scene, and two years of pandemic lockdown that would have quietly ended a lot of careers.

When we first published this conversation in 2024, Mangion had just made her first trips out of Australia and discovered New York. Nearly two years on, that discovery has become a direction. Before we get to where she is now, here is the interview as it first ran — in her own words.

The Original Interview

Dance Mogul: When did you develop a love for dance?

Lucy Mangion: Ever since I could talk, even before I could walk, I told everyone I wanted to be onstage. I used to make my family watch me put on a one-woman show from the age of two.

Dance Mogul: Who were some of your inspirations?

Lucy Mangion: When I was growing up, my biggest inspiration came from some of my peers, as I started dancing a bit later than most, and felt like I was always catching up. I was very inspired by pop stars like Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga. Now, in the dance world, I'm inspired by both current and past Broadway performers like Robyn Hurder, Rachelle Rak, and Jessica Lee Goldyn.

Photo: TGIFarah.

Dance Mogul: How did you develop a work ethic to be progressive and successful?

Lucy Mangion: I trained a lot in ballet growing up because I started at a dance school when I was 10, which is later than most people. I wanted to get a solid technical foundation. The dance industry in Australia is extremely competitive with many talented dancers and few job opportunities, which made me continuously train hard to improve and truly appreciate every opportunity given to me.

Dance Mogul: Did you have family support?

Lucy Mangion: My mum was my biggest supporter; she took me to every single dance class up until I was an adult. She paid for all my dance tuition and competitions/conventions. She provided me with every single dance opportunity when I was a kid.

Dance Mogul: When did you realize you could be a professional?

Lucy Mangion: I realized I could be a professional dancer when I received my scores for my final dance assessments. I received perfect scores for my VCE dance, VET dance, and VCE drama performance exams and was invited to perform in Top Class, the highest level of dance at a school level in Australia. That was the moment I realized that performing arts could really be a viable career path.

Dance Mogul: What have been some of your most memorable dance moments?

Lucy Mangion: Some of my favorite professional dance moments include performing for The Kid Laroi, Sean Kingston, Joel Corry, Topic, and Havana Brown, choreographing for Australian rap artists Alpy & Sophiya, and dancing for the Melbourne Aces dance team.

Photo: Cristobal Velasquez.

Dance Mogul: How did you survive the pandemic and the overall day-to-day of 2020?

Lucy Mangion: Honestly, the pandemic was very challenging for me in Melbourne because we were in complete lockdown for nearly 2 years. The only thing that kept me sane was teaching dance on Zoom and seeing my students' smiling faces. It made me really grateful for all the dance I had done before the pandemic and even more driven after we were finally let out.

Dance Mogul: How has 2020 affected your artistic decisions and progress?

Lucy Mangion: The years 2020–2021 made me realize that I needed to travel to other countries to check out the dance scene. I finally got to travel to the US in 2022, and that's when I visited NYC for the first time. It was love at first sight, and I absolutely loved the welcoming dance community in NYC.

Dance Mogul: What advice do you have for all artists as everyone works their way back to some form of normalcy?

Lucy Mangion: Dance is a gift, and we should treasure every moment we have doing it. Remember, age is just a number; there is no age limit on your professional career.

Dance Mogul: What would you like your legacy with dance to look like 20 years from now?

Lucy Mangion: In 20 years, I would love for everyone to know me as a successful Broadway performer and choreographer.

Photo: TGIFarah.

Dance Mogul: Is there anyone you'd like to thank for helping you on your journey?

Lucy Mangion: I would like to thank my mum because without her, I wouldn't be the dancer I am today.

The Making of a Melbourne Performer

Mangion is not only a dancer. She is, by her own description and that of the studios that book her, a triple threat — dancer, singer, and actor — shaped from an early age by some of Australia's most respected instructors. Her competition record is the kind that quietly opens doors: multiple national dance awards, and perfect scores in her VCE Technique Dance Solo (2016) and VCE VET Dance Jazz Solo (2017), which earned her selection to the Top Class Season of Excellence in back-to-back years — the highest level of school-age dance recognition in the state of Victoria.

Just as telling is what she chose to do with that foundation. Rather than treat spectacle as the goal, Mangion has built a reputation as a teacher who pushes artistry over athleticism — the belief that a young dancer should understand dance as an art form, not just a feat of physical difficulty. That teaching instinct, forged in the isolation of Melbourne's long lockdowns when a laptop and a Zoom class were all she had, has become as central to her identity as performing.

Where Is Lucy Mangion Now?

In the original interview, Mangion described a single trip to New York in 2022 as "love at first sight." What followed reads like the natural next chapter of that sentence. She has since taught in New York at the Broadway Dance Center — one of the most storied training rooms in the commercial dance world — bringing her artistry-first philosophy to the very city she'd fallen for. It's the clearest sign yet that the NYC dream wasn't a daydream; it was a plan she started executing.

Alongside her performing and teaching, Mangion has continued to develop as a choreographer for young and upcoming Australian dancers and has appeared on the rosters of talent and entertainment companies representing her across dance, singing, and acting. Her stated ambition has sharpened, too. She now speaks openly about wanting to choreograph for musical theater, naming Moulin Rouge as a dream project — a specific, ambitious target that lines up exactly with the "Broadway performer and choreographer" legacy she described to us in 2024.

Why It Matters to Dance Mogul Magazine

Lucy Mangion's story is a clean example of what Dance Mogul Magazine looks for: not the loudest highlight reel, but a life where the discipline of the art becomes the engine of the person. She started late and turned that into humility and hunger. She lost nearly two years to lockdown and turned that into a teaching practice and a reason to travel. She fell in love with a city and turned that into a working career move. Every setback in her account becomes fuel — which is exactly the kind of lived, usable wisdom we publish to help the next dancer keep going.

Her journey also widens the map. From Melbourne to New York, Mangion's path sits right alongside the artists profiled across our Exclusive Interviews and the disciplines documented in our Dance Styles Hub — a reminder that the empowerment we champion through dance is a global language, spoken as fluently in an Australian competition studio as on a New York stage.

The Story Continues

When Lucy Mangion told us she wanted the world to know her, in twenty years, as a successful Broadway performer and choreographer, the clock had just started. Two of those years are gone, and she has already put herself in the room — teaching in New York, sharpening her choreographic voice, and naming the stage she's aiming for.

Dance Mogul Magazine will keep following her, because hers is the kind of journey we exist to document: patient, self-funded, artistry-first, and stubbornly hopeful. The dance kept her going through lockdown. Now it's carrying her toward the marquee.

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