elisabeth motley (she/they)

Elisabeth Motley (PhD) is a Lenapehoking/NYC-based Disabled choreographer, scholar, and teacher whose work is concerned with disability as a framework for choreography and pedagogy. Motley is a 2025 Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) Artist in Residence. She has been a 2023 Movement Research Access Movement Play (AMP) Artist in Residence, a 2019-2021 Movement Research Artist in Residence, a 2020 & 2021 Dance/NYC Disability. Dance. Artistry. Dance and Social Justice Fellow and a recipient of the 2018-2019 Fulbright US-UK Scholar Award. She has shared work at Movement Research at Judson, Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project’s DraftWork, Gibney Dance, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, HERE, Festival Oltre Passo – Italy, and Springboard Danse Montreal, among others. Motley has been a BAX space grantee (2018) and an Artist in Residence at Center for Performance Research (2015). She has received grants from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts. Motley is the co-creator of Crip Movement Lab (co-created with Kayla Hamilton) – a pedagogical framework centering cross-disability accessible movement practices. Her writing has been published in Dance Chronicle and Choreographic Practices Journal. Motley has a PhD from University of Roehampton (UK) in Dance Studies focusing on disability dance, an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College, and BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School.