Jade Solomon Curtis began her dance exploration like so many other women in her family, in her mother’s living room and at family gatherings. From there she began her formal training at Landon Middle School now Lavilla School of the Arts under the direction of Michelle Ottley-Fisher and later under the direction of Phyllis Penney at Douglas Anderson High School of the Arts in Jacksonville, FL. She received her BFA from Southern Methodist University and is the recipient of fellowships, residencies, and grants from the Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Artist Trust, University of South Carolina, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Base Experimental Arts + Space, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Where Art Can Occur (WACO), Duke University (SLIPPAGE LAB) and New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project.
A celebrated soloist of Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater for four seasons, Curtis is the subject of an Emmy Award-winning short film, Jade Solomon Curtis directed by Ralph Bevins. She received SeattleDance’s first Dance Crush Award for Performance/Choreography in the riveting workshop of Black Like Me that lead to further development and funding from the National Dance Project. She has also performed with and as a member of Alison Chase Performance, Opus DanceTheater, Wideman/Davis Dance and Seattle’s highly respected 5th Avenue Theater’s productions of Oklahoma, Kiss Me Kate, Carousel, Man of La Mancha and Holiday Inn.