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
Performance
Project, 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 is
Movement (Hakodesh Press, 2020). You can learn more about her
work at
www.whollypresent.org.