Member Spotlight LIZ BORROMEO by Chara Huckins, daCi USA Member Liaison daCi member Liz Borromeo began creating performances when she was very young. She says, with a laugh, “I began dancing in my front yard performing shows for the neighbors with my record player.” Her mom always had music playing in the house which facilitated her love for music and dance. Liz began her formal dance training at age 10 with ballet classes in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Her father was in the navy, so her family moved a lot. When she was young, she grew up along the east coast in Virginia and North Carolina and then lived internationally during her teen years in Spain and Sicily. When she was considering college, she remembered going on field trips to William and Mary College in Virginia. Liz attended college there and graduated with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Dance. “Over the years it has been nice to meld these areas of study together.” College is where Liz started taking modern dance classes. She found that modern dance was her “happy place.” She enjoyed modern dance because she could push through the lines and rigidity of ballet. In college, Liz was either in the biology lab, playing piano or in the dance studio.
After college, “I wanted to continue with movement and not lose the science that I had learned,” so upon graduation, Liz started working in the physical therapy field. She moved to Yakima, Washington, and took a position as a “Medical Exercise Specialist.” She began to teach at various studios and perform with local dance groups. Liz and her husband moved across the country to Washington D.C. and then to Montana before moving to the Vancouver, Washington/Portland, Oregon area in 2002. There Liz began working in a physical therapy clinic. This was where her boss introduced her to the artistic director for a pre-professional school, Columbia Dance. At that time, they were looking to start a modern program along with needing a director for their children’s program. Upon being hired, “I was given Anne Green Gilbert’s book and Eric Chapelle’s CDs as a recipe book for creating a children’s program.” Liz spent 13 years at Columbia Dance, building and developing the two programs. In 2008, Liz had the opportunity to study in Seattle with Anne Green Gilbert, founder of the Creative Dance Center and developer of BrainDance. She worked with 10
