Meet Crelata’s^® Founder, Ella Rosewood

Bio 😊

Ella Rosewood (she/her) is an educator, choreographer, performer, solo dance preservationist, and entrepreneur based in New York City. Ella has a passion for sharing the arts with as many people as possible and has been teaching dance in various settings for 18 years. She is a lifelong member of Girl Scouts of America and is a recipient of the Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts.

As a toddler, Ella took Ballet, Tap, and Jazz dance classes at her local recreation center, and had grand improvisation sessions and performances in her living room. In elementary school, she starred in school and community theater productions which she continued through her teenage years. In middle and high school, she played the flute in the symphonic band, sang in the honors choir, and was the captain of a competitive national championship dance team. 

In college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (go Badgers!), Ella earned unprecedented dual degrees in Dance and Elementary Education while teaching dance at local studios and community centers. Her educational initiatives in local elementary schools were featured in the Inspiration Issue of Dance Studio Life Magazine.

Upon graduation, she moved to New York City, where she managed the education programs for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company & New York Live Arts, danced with horses in the Equus Projects, taught at several studios, and created and performed her own choreography.

At the same time, she started her Seminal Solos project, preserving historic solo dances for performance and educational purposes. Ella has works by seminal artists Jane Dudley, Doris Humphrey, Louise Kloepper, Katherine Litz, Sybil Shearer, Anna Sokolow, Helen Tamiris, and Hortense Lieberthal Zera in her repertoire. She has also performed works by living choreographers including Douglas Dunn, Daniel Gwirtzman, and Heidi Latsky.

Ella earned her Master’s Degree in Dance Education from the inaugural cohort of the Lincoln Center Scholars Alternative Certification Program in partnership with the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College (go Hawks!).

During graduate school, Ella founded a dance program at a middle school in Brooklyn, NY, and has been running it for the last nine years. It was during this time she was inspired to start Crelata to make culturally relevant arts education more accessible to students everywhere. 

Ella is an active advocate for the arts for every child movement. Aside from ongoing advocacy efforts at the local, state, and national levels, she has presented her scholarly research at National Dance Education Organization Conferences and helped revise the dance standards in NYC.

She has continued her studies at SUNY Empire State College, Loyola Marymount University, the Dance Education Laboratory at the 92nd Street Y, Lincoln Center Education, with Anne Green Gilbert, and is always learning from her students and colleagues. Ella is also an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level 3 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum. She is an alumnus of the Dance/NYC Junior Committee and is an avid volunteer and community connector.