hi there.

my name is emily.

like you, I am multitudes.

dancer, writer, student, teacher, sister, friend, yogi, guide, contemplative, organizer, human

I am an artist who works with movement and sound, most often in collaboration with fellow humans and the ecosystems I nestle in.

My art and practices orient towards intimacy with the self and all we are in relationship with. I strive to cultivate aliveness in all I do which includes being with grief, change, discomfort, and conflict.

thank you for being here. I hope we get to dance soon • • •

bio

emily liptow • she/they • is multi-disciplinary artist, creative producer, facilitator, and community organizer from the watershed of Lake Erie. Working with movement, voice, and textiles, they create experiences – in the form of performances, rituals, workshops, and gatherings – that invite others into sacred relationship and presence with what is here right now. emily is a committed student of change, cycles, seasons, and grief. Alongside fellow shapeshifters, she explores how collaborative movement and performance practices can nurture cultures of care and intimacy during turbulent and violent times.

emily organizes community around movement in Cleveland, Ohio and Durham, North Carolina. Currently, em teaches contact improvisation through Living Arts Collective and co-organizes regular Group Shakes. Their movement practice is shaped by training in contemporary dance techniques, physical theater, contact improvisation, Tai Chi, Aikido, and Capoeira.  She recently finished her MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis at Duke.

emily's performance work has been featured at Borderlight Fringe Festival (2022), Maelstrom Collaborative Arts (2019-2023), Cleveland Public Theatre (2018-2020), and most recently Sanctuary Series in Durham NC (2024). They have a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Ohio State University and a decade of experience working across academic, non-profit, small-business, and grassroots organizations. They have 325+ hours of trauma-informed yoga training and are an active node in networks of mutual aid, wealth redistribution, and land justice. 

  • As descendant of settlers to Turtle Island, I acknowledge that my movement takes place across indigenous land - from the ancestral lands of the Erie, Mississauga, Haudenosaunee, and Wyandot near the Great Lake Erie to the lands of the Eno, Shakori, Sissipahaw, and Occaneechi people in the mid-Atlantic. 

    The Land Justice movement is happening now. Below are a few communities and organizations that I continue to learn from and support as I am able.

    7 Directions of Service | Lake Erie Native American Council | Land Justice Futures | Black Family Land Trust

  • I am a lover of knowledge, a seeker, and life-long student. I have learned that in our modern western society, education has become a commodity to be accumulated, often inaccessible to many due to class and social constraints. I share my education and training in effort to let you know who/what I orient towards and to indicate my commitment to deep, critical, and nuanced life-long learning. Beyond these formal trainings , my deepest education is on the dance floor and in relationship with community, elders, and land.

    • MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis, DUke University, 2025

    • B.S. Industrial & Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University

    • 200 Hour Yoga Teaching Training, Abide Yoga, 2019

    • 125 Hour Untraining/Retraining, Sadhana Center for Yoga & Meditation, 2020

    • Intimacy Coordination Best Practices with Theatrical Intimacy Education, 2024

    • Reiki Attunement with Gwendolyn Ren Hashimoto

  • i’ve worked with an estate planning attorney part-time for years and know a surprising amount about probate and agent designations. I’ve also worked in the commercial truck driving industry and alongside a community of Catholic nuns. I love to linger. my cat and I are in a polyamorous relationship. voice messages are my love language.