In another time and place, Elaine Colandrea would be a temple dancer. In this world, she is a dancer/choreographer, Continuum teacher, somatic educator and bodyworker. Based in the Hudson Valley of New York, Elaine also teaches regularly in Italy and has been an invited presenter at ACSI (Association of Craniosacral Therapists in Italy), ISMETA, the Somatic Dance Conference and Performance Festival, the Omega Institute, Dharmakaya Center for Wellbeing and Shantigar Foundation.

Elaine’s primary interests have always been the transformational aspects of moving, sounding and breathing, the connection with the natural world and a belief that artful embodiment creates a more humane society.

Elaine shared an intimate, longtime involvement with Continuum, the practice founded by Emilie Conrad, from 1993 until Emilie’s passing in 2014. From 2014 – 2016, Elaine curated Continuum Movement Arts which evolved to become Watermark Arts in 2017. As artistic director, Elaine oversees a virtual website gallery featuring artists from every artistic medium, produces live performances, visual art exhibits, video works, an online journal, conferences and workshops that bring together her two passions – somatic awareness and art.
www.watermarkarts.org‍
https://vimeo.com/watermarkarts‍

With Rori Smith,Elaine co-authored “The Elemental Body: A Movement Guide to Kinship with Ourselves and the Natural World. (Epigraph Publishing, 2022.)

Other influential teachers include Susan Harper, Judi Bachrach, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Robert Ellis Dunn, Lenore Latimer, Irene Dowd, as well as study of numerous therapeutic exercise systems. Elaine has a M.A. in dance from Columbia University (1982) and was certified as a massage therapist by the Muscular Therapy Institute (1988.) Her clients and students as well as health challenges have also served as teachers.

Dance reviewer Linda Diamond  called Elaine, “a wizard of new dance forms.” Kate Goldsmith, Northern Dutchess News and Creative Living wrote, “Elaine Colandrea is an alchemist and her medium is the human body.”