Wilson Mendieta

Wilson Mendieta is an Assistant Professor in Dance at Chapman University, where he has choreographed for Chapman Celebrates and the Dance Faculty concert. Prior to his arrival to Southern California, Wilson served as the Director of the Musical Theater Program at the University of Washington in Seattle (2013 – 2017), where he also earned an M.F.A. degree in Dance and a Nonprofit Management Certificate from the Evans School of Public Affairs. His creative credits at the University of Washington includes directing a production of Pippin and Sweet Charity for the Musical Theater Program. He also earned a B.F.A. degree in Acting with a minor in Dance from Montclair State University.

After his undergraduate training, Wilson lived in the New York City area, where he worked as a performer for television, radio spots, commercials, concert dance companies, and Off-Broadway and Broadway musicals. He has had the opportunity to share stages and deepen his artistic voice alongside dignitaries of the performing arts, such as Chita Rivera, Tony Stevens, Patty LaBelle, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Mark Dendy, and Kevin Wynn, but to name a few. Wilson’s concert dance and musical theatre choreography has been seen throughout the United States, including The Kennedy Center in D.C., and has been invited to festivals in Venezuela and Australia.

Wilson has years of teaching experience, and more recently he’s taught at the University of Minnesota, Purchase, Montclair State, Tisch School of the Arts, CAP 21, Steps on Broadway, and Dance New Amsterdam. His research on how to better equip performing arts students to have sustained careers in their fields led to an invitation to present at the International Conference on Visual and Performing Arts in Athens, Greece, and the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in Oahu, HI. He also has served as a panelist for several arts funding organizations, including The National Endowment for the Arts.

Wilson’s other credits include being the recipient of a grant to conduct research on musical theatre production and training methodologies in Latin America. He also is the co-author of a new book about the collaborative nature of dance production to be released in the Fall of 2022.