Vivien Arnold received her dance training at the Hartford Ballet School, the School of American Ballet and the Heinz Bosl Foundation and danced with the Hartford Ballet in works by George Balanchine, August Bournonville, Paul Taylor, Peter Martins and Michael Uthoff, among others. She subsequently studied at Wesleyan University and graduated with a thesis on The Ballet Body: Changing Perspectives on the Feminine Ideal under Professor Sally Banes. As of 1988 she worked for Houston Ballet, first as marketing manager, then as press officer. In 1996, at the invitation of Reid Anderson, she joined the Stuttgart Ballet, where she ran the department for Press, Dramaturgy and Public Relations until 2002. After the birth of her two sons, she assisted Eric Gauthier in the founding and development of Gauthier Dance at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart from 2006 to 2010 as dramaturg, consultant and press officer.

Since 2010 she is Director of Dramaturgy and Communications of the Stuttgart Ballet. As dramaturg she has worked with, among others, Edward Clug/Jürgen Rose (The Nutcracker), Demis Volpi (Krabat, The Soldier’s Tale, Salome), Kevin O'Day (Hamlet) and Eric Gauthier (a.o. M.M. with Egon Madsen). She is the editor of a biography of Reid Anderson and editor of "John Cranko: Tanzvisionär" (both Henschel Verlag). As a moderator, she has led discussions with Marcia Haydée, Birgit Keil, Richard Cragun, Egon Madsen, Jürgen Rose, Glen Tetley, Martin Schläpfer, Christian Spuck, Marco Goecke and Jean-Pierre Frohlich, among others. From 2013 - 2015 she was a consultant (“Sachverständige”) for dance for the German national theatre prize “Der Faust”.