Elizabeth Curtis

Liz Curtis is a dance educator, performer and multimedia dance choreographer who received her BA and MFA in Dance from California State University, Long Beach, where she was awarded the Distinguished Achievement in Creative Activity Award. She is thrilled to work with Chapman University’s talented dancers where she teaches a broad range of courses and mentors students in dance film production. In Fall of 2022, Liz was honored to create a new screendance commissioned for the Department of Dance’s Masters at Chapman concert. She has also choreographed works for all of the Chapman Site-specific Dance Concerts. Liz co-directs the Spring Dance Concert at the Musco Center for the Arts and serves as the founding faculty advisor for both the Chapman Dance Film Club and The Stilettos heels-dancing club. In addition to Chapman, Liz is an adjunct faculty member of the California State University, Long Beach Department of Dance and has taught at summer intensives throughout southern California including Backhausdance and Los Alamitos Ballet.

Liz has experience teaching, performing and choreographing in both the commercial and concert dance worlds. Her performance experience includes concert works by Doug Varone, Gerald Casel, Michael Getman, Gloria Newman, John Pennington, Susan McLain, Cyrus Parker-Jeannette and Rebecca Bryant, and commercial work in film, television, music videos, international tours and Las Vegas shows. Her choreography has been presented on stage and television, conferences, and in screendance and site-specific works. Her work has also been produced nationally at dance festivals including the American College Dance Festival. Her dance films have screened in film festivals in Europe, Asia and the U.S., including at New York’s 92Y.

Liz is a BASI-certified Pilates Instructor with Dance Specialization trained by Karen Clippinger, world-renowned author, researcher, and lecturer. She had the pleasure of assisting Karen with the BASI Pilates teacher training certification and several classes at CSULB. Liz is also a graduate of The Sanford Meisner Center's Professional Acting Certificate Program in North Hollywood.

Liz has enjoyed expanding the Department of Dance’s dance film offerings. In fall of 2021, she founded the Chapman Dance Film Club to cultivate a community of filmmakers, choreographers and performers interested in the intersection of dance and film. The club offers workshops in all aspects of dance film production, and produces projects throughout the year whereby students gain experience both in front of and behind the camera. The academic year culminates in the annual Chapman Dance Film Festival, a lively event screening films made by club members.

In the fall of 2022, Liz directed, choreographed and edited an 11-minute dance film in her role as Screendance Specialist for the Masters at Chapman concert. The dancers gained valuable experience shooting the film on production sets in Los Angeles.

In fall of 2023, she created and taught the department’s newest film-related course, Dance on Camera, a class focused entirely on the art of on-camera performance.

As co-director of the Spring Dance Concert, she has had the pleasure of providing mentorship to choreographers incorporating video projection into their live works.