Charlie Neshyba-Hodges

Founder and Inventor

 

Combining his professional lives in dance and design, Charlie is inspired by all the stuff that makes us human.

 

A Product Designer from Los Angeles, with a minor in social and environmental impact, he graduated Valedictorian from ArtCenter College of Design. He is IDSA’s 2018 Western District Student Award Winner. His designs have won 2 gold medals in international design competitions, and earned recognitions for sustainability and gender neutrality. He has spoken on the TEDx Stage, discussing Learning from Failure, and on a panel of Young Entrepreneurs at the 2018 BOLD Symposium discussing Leadership in the 21st Century.

 

For nearly 2 decades, he danced professionally, performing for the Queens of England and Amsterdam, at the Palace of Versailles, Cannes and Fringe Film Festivals and at Art Basel in Switzerland. He has performed 4 leading roles on Broadway, one of which earned him the 2010 Fred Astaire Award for Best Male Dancer on Broadway. In collaboration with Twyla Tharp, Charlie created dance notation and earned the European Critic’s Choice Award as Best Male Dancer of the Year. For his contributions to dance and dance education, and while working alongside Benjamin Millepied to launch LA Dance Project, LA Weekly Awarded him Person of the Year in 2014.

 

Graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Washington, he is a Mary Gates Research Scholar where he created a college level program that explores how the dancer’s brain learns and currently works with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab designing site-specific installations that educate the public and motivate the engineers working on a new climate change satellite called NISAR.