ABOUT

Elayna Waxse is a professional performer, educator, and choreographer.

Elayna is originally from Overland Park, Kansas and is now based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began her training at nine years old with Alecia Good and also at the Kansas City Ballet School under the direction of Karen P. Brown, spending her summers at the School of American Ballet in New York City.  She continued her training at the Professional Division program at Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle, WA., where she regularly performed with the company. 

EXPERIENCE

Professionally, Elayna has danced with Minnesota Dance Theatre, Colorado Ballet/Colorado Ballet Studio Company, Black Label Movement, BodyCartography Project, and with Cie. Ismael Ivo at ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival 2014.

She was a member of TU Dance from 2012 to 2019, and was part of the original creation team of Come Through, the collaboration between TU Dance and Grammy-award winning musical group Bon Iver. Through this collaboration Elayna performed at the Hollywood Bowl (LA, CA), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), and at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (Manchester, TN).

Other credits include work by George Balanchine, Glen Tetley, Loyce Houlton, Eliot Feld, Uri Sands, Dwight Rhoden, Francesca Harper, Gioconda Barbuto, Katrin Hall, Greg Dolbashian, and Stephanie Batten-Bland. Elayna is a 2019 recipient of a McKnight Fellowship in Dance. 

In addition to her performing career, Elayna has assisted TU Dance artistic director Uri Sands on his choreographic projects for the New Orleans Ballet Association (2016), Ballet Memphis (2017), and Performa/Dance of Austin (2017).

She has also presented choreographic work of her own through the support of  Minnesota Dance Theatre (2017,2018), University of Minnesota Opera Theatre (2018,2019), St. Olaf College (2018), Ballet Minnesota’s MN Dance Festival (2018), Zenon Dance Zone (2016), 9×22 at Bryan Lake Bowl (2015), Future Interstates (2015), and Detroit Dance Race (2013).