Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Rabbi Diane Elliot- Season 10, Episode 121

Diane Elliot was born in Chicago and grew up in the north suburbs. Trained in dance from an early age, she received extensive training in dance and theatre at New Trier High School in Winnetka and in 1971 graduated summa cum laude, phi beta kappa from the University of Michigan, with a major in American Arts. For the next 25 years, Diane enjoyed a varied career in dance and theatre, studying with Alwin Nikolais and Murry Louis, Nancy Meehan and Finis Jung in New York City; performing and touring from 1972-77 with New York-based Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company; and producing her own work in New York in such venues as The Dance Gallery, the Theatre of Riverside Church, and Dance Theatre Workshop, as well as across the country.  From 1979-82 she taught at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, France, and performed with La Manivelle throughout Alsace. In 1981 Diane relocated to Minneapolis, where she taught at the University of Minnesota as a guest artist and then joined MICA (the Minnesota Independent Choreographer’s Alliance, later the Minnesota DanceAlliance). For a number of years, she edited MICA’s newsletter and worked in the office. During her time in New York and Minnesota, Diane created over 30 dances, including commissions for the Ft. Wayne Dance Collective, The Yard, Dance Caravan, the Carolina Dancers, Zenon Dance Company, the New Dance Ensemble, and the Jerome Foundation, as well serving as choreographer for several productions at the Illusion Theatre and the Guthrie Lab production of Cymbeline. Her work was recognized with grants from the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board Grants, Artslink, and the Jerome Foundation. Beginning in 1983, Diane trained in the somatic modality Body-Mind Centering® with its founder, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and for some 30 years maintained a private practice in somatic therapy and taught in the School for Body-Mind Centering’s training programs. In 1990 she co-founded the Women’s PerformanceProject, which explored the healing potential of movement-based performance in a series of five evening-length performances, including Bloodroot and Labyrinth. In 1998 Diane relocated to California and in 2000 matriculated at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, in Los Angeles. Ordained as a rabbi in 2006, Diane has served communities in the Bay Area. As a Program Director for the ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal, she created and directed the Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body training, a residential retreat program in embodied Jewish spiritual leadership. She currently teaches independently; serves as a spiritual director; is on the faculty of Taproot, a spiritual training program for Jewish activists, artists, and, and changemakers; and is a founding member and on the advisory council of the Embodied Jewish Wisdom Network. Diane is the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Voice isMovement (Hakodesh Press, 2020). You can learn more about her work atwww.whollypresent.org.