Somatic Contemporary Dance. In-Person with Elizabeth Lentz-Hill

All levels welcome

Immerse yourself in the joy of moving collectively. From the true beginner to the experienced dancer, Elizabeth encourages laughter, growth, and invites you to embrace the grand mistakes that lead to new understandings.  Find the delight that dance brings!

 Set to an engaging playlist, this class will explore the broad range of movements that make up contemporary and modern dance, incorporating improvisation, warm up combinations, and stretching and strengthening exercises. The hour culminates in dances designed to engage your full body and mind in dynamic, expressive movement. 

Each week, we will review previous content as well as dive into something new, making it easy to drop in for one class while also developing a deeper practice by attending weekly. 

Elizabeth’s approach to contemporary dance aims to give students the opportunity to explore the connections and capabilities of their unique body through somatic experiences.

PLEASE NOTE: In-person participants are welcome to wear masks.

* If students are interested in a virtual option, please contact the front desk 

3/10/2022

Elizabeth Lentz-Hill

Elizabeth’s students love the joy, humor and freedom of expression in her classes. Her classes inspire students to think about dance and life in new, exciting ways.

Elizabeth grew up in Hawaiʻi and is happy to be home, dancing in the place she loves, after more than twenty years of experience performing, teaching, choreographing and promoting dance. She has toured France, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. with Tennessee Dance Theatre, Chicago Moving Company, Lucky Plush Productions, and Breakbone DanceCo., and performed works by Bill T. Jones, Doug Elkins, Twyla Tharp, and Charles Weidman. 

Prior to returning to Hawaiʻi in 2018, Elizabeth co-founded two dance companies and two regional dance festivals on the continent, one to promote modern dance in Chicago and one for 7-12th grade dancers and their dance educators in Mississippi. She served as an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), where she taught ballet, modern, dance education, anatomy, choreography, and dance theory classes. While at USM, Elizabeth worked to bridge the Dance and Theatre Departments, including co-creating a full-length devised theatre work with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and serving as Interim Chair for both departments. She holds a BA in Religion with a concentration in Women’s Studies from Carleton College, and an MFA in Dance from the University of Washington. 

“Ms. Lentz-Hill has effervescence, an inner glow, and an absolute belief in what she is presenting in the studio. There is an indefinable type of energy that leaps from her to her students. These qualities projected not only from Ms. Lentz-Hill but also from the students in the residency as they worked with her. The dancers left her sessions with knowledge of a dynamic energy, knowing they had something of value to contribute to the community around them so much greater than an ability to be a technically sound dancer. To paraphrase a student in the residency – working with Ms. Lentz-Hill was not just a lesson in technique, it was a lesson in life! “  – Mid-Pacific Institute