About Us

Meet Ms. Eliese

Ms. Eliese Freeman-Crumley is the founder and director of DANCE by Eliese and has been teaching dance since 2008. Her own dance education began in 1991 and spans classical ballet and pointe, jazz, tap, modern and contemporary dance, Spanish dance and castanets, ballroom dance, acrobatics, baton twirling, choreography, and related movement studies.

Her approach to dance education draws from much more than technique alone. Ms. Eliese has extensive study in dance pedagogy, music theory, dance history, anatomy and body mechanics, flexibility, functional movement, nutrition, and safe technical progression, along with academic studies in Fine Arts, mathematics, mechanical engineering, and biological sciences. She is especially passionate about musical education for dancers and teaches students to understand how rhythm, meter, phrasing, dynamics, musical structure, and interpretation inform movement.

Ms. Eliese has completed Cecchetti Council of America teacher examinations through the Intermediate level and is qualified to coach both students and teachers in the Cecchetti Method. She has attended the CCA International Teacher’s Course for approximately ten years and regularly pursues continuing education across multiple dance and movement disciplines. Her professional training and certifications also include Acrobatic Arts, Baton Arts, United States Twirling Association, Dance Educators of America, Alixa Flexibility, Progressing Ballet Technique, and RockTape Functional Movement Therapy.

Her involvement in the broader dance community has included leadership with the Southwest Committee of the Cecchetti Council of America since 2017, where she has served as Treasurer, Vice Chair, and Chair. She also served on the Ballet Arkansas Board of Directors from 2019–2024, including as Board President.

Ms. Eliese founded DANCE by Eliese in 2014 with the belief that dance education should grow with the student. DBE’s curriculum begins as young as age three and is intentionally designed to develop over many years, with each stage building the technique, vocabulary, musical understanding, artistry, movement knowledge, and independence needed for the next.

As director, Ms. Eliese develops and oversees curriculum across DBE’s programs, mentors faculty, coaches students and teachers, and prepares dancers for formal examinations and advanced study. Her students have continued their performing arts education at professional dance companies, colleges, and universities around the country.

Most importantly, Ms. Eliese wants dancers to understand why, not just what. A dancer should know why a correction matters, why the music changes the movement, why one skill must come before another, and how technique and artistry work together. Her goal is to develop dancers who are not simply good at following instructions, but who become knowledgeable, thoughtful, independent artists.

Outside the studio, Ms. Eliese enjoys spending time with her dogs, paddling Arkansas rivers, and reading in her hammock.