“My injury” and “to meet or be met”
performer bios (alphabetical by first name)
Aliyah Verdiner
Aliyah started dancing with Erin when she was 7. For high school, she attended the Professional Performing Arts School as a dance major at Alvin Ailey, and continued to learn from Erin during this time. She then attended NYU Stern majoring in Finance and Data Science, while participating in NYU Pulse Dance, a student-run organization which provides non-dance majors with a space to continue creating and performing work throughout college. She now works full time in Equity and Derivatives Market Risk, and reconnecting with Erin and her choreography at this time has been such a welcomed return to movement, creativity, and artistry.
Ava Renz
Claire Foley
Ella Ammann-Bianciardi
Ella joined this wonderful group of dancers when she was four years old, and is so excited to have the chance to move with them again all these years later. In the meantime, she attended Smith College, where she earned a Bachelor's degree in European History with a minor in Dance, and then went on to get her Master's in History at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She is deeply grateful to Erin and all of her fellow dancers for the opportunity to reconnect with them and herself through this experience.
Lila Murphy
Lila has been a student of Erin's for 20 years. Two decades! She loves modern dance and is thrilled to be back in the studio. When she's not dancing, Lila is a Housing Organizer at Dream.Org (If you have been impacted by incarceration and/or housing insecurity and you want to join the fight for housing justice in New York, we'd love to have you! Visit: do.dream.org/HousingUnlocked). Lila also loves to read, travel, and swim.
Lucia Napier-Benincasa
Lucia Napier-Benincasa is a dancer turned nature school teacher. With over a decade of dance training under her belt, she has studied techniques ranging from classical to post-modern/contemporary. She began dancing at the age of 4 with Erin Gottwald and continued dancing throughout High School and into college. She earned a Bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College with core concentrations centered around dance and developmental/early-childhood psychological research. Although she has taken a step back from dance in recent years, her passion for it persists!
Ruby Ree Gerse
Ruby began dancing at two and a half with the Russian ballet in Brighton Beach. She has been dancing with Erin since the age of four. In high school she danced with the Joffrey Ballet partnership with Fort Hamilton high school. Ruby earned her bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Gender, Women’s, and Sexualities Studies from Grinnell College. She is so grateful for this opportunity to perform with the people she started the journey with twenty years ago!