Bob Curtis was born in Mississippi in 1925 the son of a farming family. At the age of 17 he was recruited for military service in World War II. When he returned from the war he started studying Fine Arts at the San Francisco State University. At the same time he began to take ballet classes at the San Francisco Ballet School. Later he moved to New York where he received a scholarship to study at Balanchine’s American Ballet School and with Katherine Dunham, also taking classes with Martha Graham. He danced professionally with the Katherine Dunham and José Limon companies, before an accident forced him to change direction in his professional career. He began working in commercial shows which eventually took him to Europe where he was to become one of the pioneers for African and contemporary dance. He settled in Rome and together with Elsa Piperna he founded one of the first contemporary dance theatres in Italy. In 1977 he founded the Compagnia Afro Danza. Under his artistic direction and with his choreographies the company toured widely through Italy and Europe until 1990. In 1991 he moved to Vienna where he has focused mainly on teaching and modelling. For the last couple of years he dedicates much of his time to his paintings which he presented in various exhibitions (link to exhibitions).

From: Dagmar Fischer, Ballett Intern, 67/28.