Bio

Christa Oliver is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Performing Arts and Technology at NC State University and Director of the Panoramic Dance Project. Under her direction, the Panoramic Dance Project won NC State’s 2025-26 Provost’s Award for High-Impact Experiential Learning, which recognizes excellence in the development and delivery of high-impact, interdisciplinary experiences that engage students.

Prior to joining NC State, Oliver spent eleven years teaching in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Texas State University. She holds a Master of Arts in Dance Performance and a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She was a Mellon Fellow in the School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University.

Throughout her career, Oliver has worked with esteemed choreographers and dance pioneers such as Donald McKayle, Valerie Preston-Dunlop, Rafael Bonachela, Donald Byrd, Rennie Harris, Lula Washington, Victor Quijada, Christopher Huggins, Willi Dorner, Miguel Pereira, Robin Lewis, and Dominique Kelly. She also served as dance captain on the national tour of the acclaimed musical The Color Purple. Her performance career has included extensive touring throughout the United States and performances in the Netherlands, England, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Kosovo, and Mexico. She has appeared in Hollywood films including Avatar (dir. James Cameron) and Crazy on the Outside (dir. Tim Allen).

Since arriving in North Carolina in 2023, Oliver’s choreography and creative work have been presented at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the North Carolina Dance Festival, CenterFest, and other regional venues. Her work has also been featured in multiple collaborations with the North Carolina Museum of Art, including choreography inspired by Auguste Rodin’s The Cathedral and Times of Refreshing, performed by the Panoramic Dance Project. She has been commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art to co-direct and choreograph a site-specific dance performance responding to Paul Cocksedge’s Please Be Seated—North Carolina. At NC State, she has developed interdisciplinary collaborations with visual artists, writers, musicians, and faculty across disciplines, including Maya Freelon, North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green, NC State’s Wilson College of Textiles, and the Gregg Museum of Art + Design. Most recently, Oliver choreographed the 2026 regional premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’s Sally & Tom at ZACH Theatre. Her work has been published in Dancer-Citizen, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal focused on socially engaged dance.