Elizabeth enjoyed dance and music as a child. From 2000-2005 she danced with Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre in Cambridge, MA as a student, apprentice and then full company dancer. She has also served on the organization’s faculty, helped spearhead the original Dance for World Community Festival, and continues to serve on its board. She has studied and performed modern dance with Mary Anthony and others; Chinese Folk Dance with Margaret Yuen / Red Silk Dancers including techniques with fan, ribbon and chopsticks; Irish Dance with Jennie Darby / Scoil Rince Bréifne Ó Ruairc; and has dabbled in ballroom dance, contra dancing, English country dancing, breaking and Feldenkreis (Awarenss through Movement). She has played violin in a community orchestra in New York City and in a 60’s rock band in Northampton MA, and currently plays fiddle with Gaellica, accompanying dancers of Scoil Rince Bréifne Ó Ruairc. She hopes to start a Celtic Metal band in Alaska.
Since 2024, Elizbeth has brought her depth of experience in performing arts to the discipline of Figure & Fancy Skating. She believes our bodies are smart= and is passionate about training them. Using her meta-process, practicing figures daily and working with Karen Courtland Kelly, she won the International Open division of the World Figure Sport competition in Figure & Fancy Skating after only 5 months of skating. Elizabeth has a deep love of figures, each one a beautiful and challenging puzzle to work out in our bodies; she has created dance figures; and she is developing a dance movement language based on the body positions and movements of skating. She looks forward to sharing her meta-process of how we can think about and approach our bodies, expand their capabilities, build awareness through movement, and train them to do anything within those capabilities.
Outside of performing arts, Elizabeth is a Research Associated with the University of Alaska, currently studying a variety of environmental issues and natural hazards in the State of Alaska. She has published original research on Greenland glaciers and formerly worked on the climate model at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies at Columbia University. She lives with her dog and her teenage daughter.