Summary
Nate Hodges is an educator and choreographer who spent more than 16 years contributing to the growth of jazz dance in Southern California. He believes strongly in creating work that explores the line between art and entertainment, and that embraces genre and accessibility.
Hodges is an artistic director of RhetOracle Dance Company, an award-winning contemporary jazz ensemble that has performed in over 45 different concerts since 2006 including the Los Angeles Dance Festival, Orange County Dance Festival, Celebrate Dance, Pasadena Dance Festival, the SoCal Dance Invitational, as well as 10 self-produced full-length concerts. Professionally, Hodges was a founding member of Mike Esperanza’s BARE Dance Company and also danced with FunkanometrySF, Louise Reichlin and Dancers, KM Legacy, and in Another Gay Movie. He was the resident choreographer for the award-winning hyper-theatrical theater company Rogue Artists Ensemble from 2003-2018. He has been on faculty at California State University, Long Beach, Jimmie DeFore’s Dance Studio, Elevation Studios and MMSD, and was the founder of the dance department at Santa Monica High School in 2008.
Hodges has been the recipient of nine Lester Horton Dance Award nominations, winning in 2011 for his dance Flowers That Pick Themselves, a 2018 LA Scenie Award for Best Choreography in a Play for Wood Boy Dog Fish, a 2014 Jerry Herman Award for his choreography in Pippin, a nomination for 2011 Dancer of the Year by the Beverly Hills Outlook and his company was awarded the Long Beach Post's 2012 Best Hidden Cultural Treasure award.
He holds a B.A. in dance from the University of California Irvine where he danced with the hip-hop troupe Kaba Modern and Donald McKayle’s Etude Ensemble. He holds an MFA in dance from CSU Long Beach and won the Graduate Award for Creative Excellence. Hodges is currently on faculty for the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Nevada, Reno, specializing in the jazz and musical theatre dance.
Courses taught
- DAN 101 Dance Appreciation
- DAN 288 Choreography II
- DAN 132 Beginning Jazz
- DAN 232 Intermediate Jazz
- DAN 332 Advanced Jazz
- DAN 432 Jazz IV
- DAN 376 Musical Theatre
Education
- MFA, dance, California State University, Long Beach, 2018
- B.A., dance, University of California, Irvine, 2003