Carly Van Orman:
"Feminism is about having
a choice"
Even before we met Carly Van Orman, US Diplomat currently serving as an Assistant Public Affairs Officer with the US Consulate in Almaty, we wondered how is it possible to combine diplomacy, law, tap dancing and musical theatre into a single career path, and on top of that to have three kids, travel extensively and love life. Zhanara Rakhmetova discussed wide ranging topics with Carly from Broadway to feminism.
You can also read this article in Russian.
Zhanara Rakhmetova
July 16, 2018
— I think it all started because I have little hands. When I was small my mother wanted me to take piano lessons, but I could not reach from one key to the other. Instead, I took singing classes. From the time I was a kid I did theatre things. I really love musical theatre and Broadway. I sing, dance, tap dance and all of that. I got to do a lot of theatre and some film and TV.
I come from a fairly small town. I went to a high school for the performing arts to study theatre. But our head administrator discouraged us from pursuing creative careers saying that it can be very hard to make a living as an artist. In the end, I studied international relations in college. After that I went to law school.
I think in my life I had been very lucky because I was able to do things at the right time. For example, if I had started law school two years later, the economy would have been worse and it would have been much harder to find a job. I got into the Foreign Service at the time when they were hiring new diplomats.
