Elizabeth A. Sullivan was a professional ballerina with the Cleveland/San Jose and Boston Ballet companies. After earning a BA at Dartmouth College and an MA at Columbia University, Elizabeth returned to dance in her current capacity as a wellness coach, consultant, and teacher.
Since 2011, she has taught workshops and seminars in major ballet schools across the country.
Elizabeth coaches young dancers and their parents in her private practice, helping them navigate the ins and outs of the dance world. Her dancers have trained at elite schools like the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet Schools in London, San Francisco Ballet School, School of American Ballet, and the JKO School at American Ballet Theatre; they have won medals at Youth America Grand Prix and Prix de Lausanne, been invited to compete at IBC Jackson and Varna, and gone on to dance at major world companies like American Ballet Theatre, the English National Ballet, and Dutch National Ballet, among others.
She is a certified Wellness Coach through the American College of Sports Medicine and Wellcoaches School of Coaching, as well as the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC.
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How did you become a success coach and wellness mentor for dancers?
When I was 8, I decided I wanted to dance, and that was the beginning of the next two decades of my life. Like your child, I trained at pre-professional schools, attended summer intensives, and dreamed of being a professional.
When I was 16, I moved away from home to pursue more intensive training at the North Carolina School of the Arts. That decision came after a year of family discussion, school visits and auditions.
That first year away from home was tough on me as well as my family; none of us were sure we had done the right thing. The dance world was a lot more cutthroat and “crazy” than I was used to, but I loved the training and was improving and growing.
I kept my sense of humor and priorities, thanks to my family, and landed a company contract with the Cleveland Ballet after my senior year.
I had a happy and fulfilling career with Cleveland and later the Boston Ballet companies, dancing some of my dream roles, but there were troubling moments: friends in distress with eating, colleagues hospitalized with Advil overdoses… there was a dark, hidden culture that no one talked much about.
When a fellow dancer died of complications related to her eating disorder, I knew it was time to leave. I lost my faith in the whole field; it seemed like no one cared about the dancers, just what happened onstage.
I retired and went to Dartmouth College, then moved to Italy to work in study abroad programs. Years later, I realized that I missed dance, so I decided to pursue my master’s in Arts Administration at Columbia University in order to prepare me to re-enter the dance world as an executive director or school principal.
During that process, I wrote a thesis on dancer wellness programs in pre-professional ballet schools and found my passion.
After my M.A., I sought out certifications in coaching on nutrition with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and on the science of motivation and coaching at Wellcoaches School of Coaching. That work, combined with my own experience of the field, pushed me to develop a wellness curriculum that has evolved into the coaching programs I offer now. And that is how I became a coach.
I absolutely love my work. There is nothing I would rather do!
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