Elizabeth Polk

10/29/2001

Elizabeth Polk, 99, of New York City, a summer resident of Peru for the past 20 years, died Oct. 29 at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan, N.Y. Born in Vienna, Austria, on March 23, 1902, daughter of Julius and Katherine Sofer, she attended schools in Austria. She came to the United States in 1938. Having studied ballet, modern and other forms of dance in Europe, Mrs. Polk began holding dance classes in her home in New York. She joined the staff of Adelphi's Children's Center for Creative Arts in 1960 and went on to lecture at universities on the history of dance, and methodology in teaching children's dance classes. Her career as a dance therapist began in 1957, when she became the first recreational dance teacher at the Lexington School for the Deaf, where she worked until 1977. In the 1960s and 1970s, she worked as a dance therapist at several schools for special children in New York. Mrs. Polk taught dance at every age level and in settings ranging from housing projects to college campuses. She taught at summer camps, including Camp Berkshire Hills and Camp Romaca in Hinsdale. Her specialty was teaching creative movement to emotionally disturbed and handicapped children. She was a founding member of the American Dance Therapy Association in 1966, and helped to establish standards of training and competence for the emerging profession. In 1995, at the age of 93, she was honored at the ADTA's 30th annual convention as a chief pioneer in dance/movement therapy. Mrs. Polk retired from teaching in 1991. She spent summers at her home in Peru, where she enjoyed walking in the woods and swimming across the lake. She and her husband, Harry Polk, were married in Vienna in 1936. They enjoyed hiking and skiing in the Austrian mountains and walking the Appalachian Trail. Mr. Polk died in 1983. She leaves a daughter, Grace Polk of Manhattan.

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