Elise Butterfield

Elise Butterfield is a current graduate student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she studies contemporary art history and arts administration. She is particularly interested in embodied histories and multidisciplinary curation. After serving as the operations manager for a year and a half, Elise joined the artistic side of TSMP in 2021.

Elise started dancing at age 8 in her hometown of Seattle, Washington. She attended the University of Washington, where she studied dance and international studies. Following graduation, Elise worked in arts administration, specifically at the intersection of arts and disability. From 2015 – 2019, Elise worked at Art Access in Salt Lake City as the Programs and Gallery Director.

Since moving to Chicago, Elise has worked with the Chicago Dancemakers Forum and was named an Abakanowicz Fellow and a Graduate Curatorial Fellow with the Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Elise’s curatorial work engages a similar ethos to that of TSMP - prioritizing process, body, and collaboration. In her position as Graduate Curatorial Assistant at the SAIC Galleries she is currently curating I Invited Myself, an experimental installation and residency with performance-based interdisciplinary artist Eiko Otake to take place in January - February 2022. Her engagement with TSMP marks her return to performance after a 7-year hiatus.