Obituary: In the Footsteps

of Elsa Wolliaston,

Master of Walking

Isabelle Calabre

A major figure in contemporary dance, Elsa Wolliaston passed away in March 2026 at the age of 80. From New York City to Paris and to Western Africa, this exceptional artist, teacher, and choreographer inspired a generation with her infectious energy, insatiable curiosity, and fascinating style in which walking took center stage. 

There was a notable absence at this year's Dance Biennial in Africa, hosted in Senegal in early May: Elsa Wolliaston, a pillar of the continent's artistic diaspora who passed away in March at the age of 80. Born in Jamaica in 1945, Wolliaston grew up in Kenya, and went on to disseminate her sensitive and soulful dance beyond borders from her Paris home. 

“She was truly an inspiring person,” says choreographer Salia Sanou, founder of La Termitière, a center for choreographic development in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and current Director of the National Center for Choreography in Nantes. “I took her classes in Paris in the mid 90s. I then lost touch with her, before inviting her to La Termitière to co-lead a workshop, and then in 2016 for the Triennale [editor’s note: the former name of the African Dance Biennial ].” While participating in a roundtable discussion, Sanou recalls, the septuagenarian suddenly stood up and, with her limited mobility, performed, for a few suspended minutes, a piece that remains etched in collective memory.

Wolliaston trained in New York City in the 1960s with the major dance figures of the time. She learned ballet with Russian icon Alexandra Danilova, “primitive” dances with pioneering choreographer and activist Katherine Dunham, and contemporary movement with modern dance legend Merce Cunningham – all while learning piano at the prestigious Carnegie School of Music and Dance. She moved to Paris in 1969, while also continuing to feed her artistic research with frequent trips to West Africa and Bali. She taught in the American Center on boulevard Raspail, a hub for the city of light’s cultural avant-garde, and soon created her first solo performances. 

In the artistic flurry of the 1970s and 1980s, Wolliaston met those who would become her lifelong artistic companions: jazz saxophone player Steve Lacy, percussionist and djembe player Bruno Besnaïnou, drummer Jean-Yves Colson, and Japanese choreographer Hideyuki Yano – with whom she founded Mâ Danse-Rituel Théâtre in 1975. In almost forty years, she worked with many leading figures in the arts: choreographers François Verret and Douglas Dunn; stage directors Philippe Adrien, Luc Bondy, and Patrice Chéreau; and filmmakers Arnaud Desplechin and Justine Triet. Well into her seventies, she appeared in films by Damien Manivel (Les Enfants d’Isadora, 2019) and Clément Cogitore (Goutte d’or, 2022).

And after Yano’s passing in 1988, she launched her own dance company – One Step La Marche. Beginning with her solo Rituel solo, created in the early 70s, the fifty or so pieces she created were all inspired by the rhythms of walking bodies. “For something to be beautiful, it has to be accurate,” she said in Résonnances rituelles, a 2022 documentary by Cécile Proust. Adding, “I’ll dance as long as I can breathe.” With joy, humor, and – according to Cécile Proust – a certain childlike spirit, what characterized Wolliaston best was her magnetism. 

“Everyone who knew her experienced something unique in her presence,” says Julia Viala, production administrator at the CN D. “It was one of the most important encounters of my life.” In 2012, as a young non-professional dancer, Viala discovered the One Step dance studio in Paris, where she took Wolliaston’s classes for several years. “Even back then, Elsa wasn’t dancing anymore. She would sit on a chair at the edge of the studio with her cane, her baton, and her earplugs. First she would give her warm-up instructions, then, with the help of one of us, she would come and sit next to the drummer. After an initial walking exercise, she would form lines of two or three dancers, placing the veterans in the front row so they could guide the newcomers. Her movements didn’t follow any specific style, but they were very precise, with a focus on the sternum and the pelvis. There were those who tried it out and ran off, and those who stayed forever!”

This past September, Wolliaston was scheduled to perform at Le Regard du Cygne venue in Paris for the documentary choreography What Age Brings to Dance, created in 2023 by Proust. But cancer ultimately got the better of the 80-year-old’s tremendous energy – that transcendent life force which, as she herself put it, “always comes from afar.” It was an inner light that burned for decades, as demonstrated in L’Envol de la marche: l’œuvre dansée d’Elsa Wolliaston, a retrospective tribute performance and collective celebration that was part of the Centre Pompidou’s Paris Noir programming in 2025 – a tribute to the city’s Black artists. 

Despite Wollaston’s passing, her memory lives on in the hearts of those to whom she so generously imparted her art. Not only her passion for dance, but also, according to Julie Viala, “the sensuality of life, and a rare sense of freedom. Every movement opening to eternity.”

Isabelle Calabre is a journalist specializing in culture and dance, who works with several magazines: Danza&Danza and Le Parisien Week-end. She is the author of the book Hip hop et Cies, 1993-2012 as well as the YA book Je danse à l’Opéra (ed. Parigramme). Additionally, she has conducted research on West Indian and Guyanese quadrilles that has led to an essay submitted to the CN D in 2023, as well as an inventory of theses Creole social dances for their inclusion in France’s Universal Cultural Heritage list. In 2024, with Caraïbéditions, she launched a new collection showcasing the diversity of dances and the children who practice them. Already published: Moi aussi je danse le quadrille, Moi aussi je danse le hip-hop. To be published in 2026 : Moi aussi je danse le classique

Elsa Wolliaston's Official Website

Le son d’Elsa
Vidéo, Ministère de la Culture collection, 2013
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Elsa Wolliaston, danseuse, pédagogue et chorégraphe : "J'écoute la sonate Hammerklavier de Beethoven tous les matins"
podcast Musique émoi, by Priscille Lafitte
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The Elsa Wolliaston Collection will soon be available on mediatheque.cnd.fr