movement and metaphor are key ingredients in redeeming the stories our bodies keep
— V
a b o u t
(an atlas)
To our local visitors and faraway friends,
Welcome to eleVe’s online space. Before we dive into this crafted series of “maps” that, when charted together, form a grander picture of what has made eleVe, eleVe…let us first gain our bearings… 🗺️
At eleVe, we believe that the practice and performance of fine art is one of our greatest potentials to experience personal growth and communal healing. Although we are a for-profit local start-up, our studio aims to always be in a position where we can offer partial and full scholarships to students who need it, with a special focus on supporting survivors of cancer, trauma, and addiction.
Our current classes range from adult and youth ballet, to somatic movement and dance, to custom privates and performance arts camps — all taught through the redemptive lens of narrative.
a u d i e n c e
If you’re an adult or teenage dancer who is interested in joining a new dance community, we’d love to have you and hope to tendu soon!
If you’re someone who loves art culture & community, you will find kindred spirits at our classes and cohorts. Stay tuned for our upcoming Monthly-Monday Makers’ Tables, led by local & visiting master artists.
If you’re someone whose child who wants to learn ballet in an encouraging, non-competitive environment, our youth classes are designed to inspire personal health, communal joy, and creative confidence.
If you’re someone struggling in your life story — from either physical or emotional pain, who wants to focus on restoring your mental and somatic health, this is the heart of our company! Sometimes, we just need to start moving our bodies in new and purposeful ways to funnel pain and break chains. Sometimes, having a place where we belong and are valued changes everything.
If you’re someone who's never danced but has always wanted to, it’s never too late! We love working with mature dancers at their ballet journey’s genesis. Same goes for a child who “missed out” on training by not starting until now — that is a myth that will vanish by the end of their first class. Or if you’re an adult that danced so long ago it would feel completely new, we love getting to reintroduce you to an old love!
If you’re someone who’s survived trauma, treatment, or other tragedies such as abuse, addiction, or incarcertation, our trauma-informed somatic classes are designed with you in mind. Check out our Survivor Series, starting this winter.
If you’re a local artist — either by hobby or vocation — who is interested in collaborating with our studio via work-trade, craft swaps, workshops, galleries, or other events, please don’t hesitate to connect with us. Part of our mission is to eleVate local creators.
If you fall into one or more of these categories, please call us today! We look forward to getting to know you and your story!
(802) 230-7679
a u t h o r
Before we dive further, allow me (your narrator) to properly introduce myself: I’m Victoria Sottosanti — the V behind eleVe — founder and artistic director of the studio where story lives. Mostly, I write, I dance, I teach, and I tell stories. Inside of the “home,” I enjoy raising my son alongside my husband, who attended Dartmouth (GO, BIG GREEN!), and whose connections to the area brought us back to the Upper Valley. Since arriving in 2018, we’ve only fallen in love more with this place and its people, so we finally decided to settle and buy our first home.
I hold an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire - Durham, (GO, WILDCATS!), where years earlier I earned my BA in English with a concentration in Writing & Film Studies. Since finishing grad school in 2017, I’ve been on the thrilling path of trying to “make it” as a writer (which, by the way, will totally still happen since I’ll never give up…). Over the past decade, I’ve worked hard and long at my writing desk to create works of literature, namely creative nonfiction, that others consider worth publishing, awarding, and funding. The years between my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I worked in the nonprofit sector for a campus ministry, allowing me to develop my leadership skills by advocating for students who needed it most, like those struggling with addiction, crises, and mental illness.
One of my greatest pleasures in serving the campus was sharing my story through through narrative, slam poetry, public speaking, and other storytelling mediums. One of my main focuses was launching International Cafe, an intentionally designed program and welcoming for students from other countries to not feel so isolated during their time as an exchange students in the States. What started as an awkward English club, soon turned into a thriving gathering of 80+ college students that met twice a month, forging connections that continued on outside of our meetings. Having the opportunity to impact youth and “outsiders” in such profound ways significantly shaped the work I still do today. When you walk into one of eleVe’s boutique or satellite studios, you will be welcomed like family, told to make yourself at home, and immediately offered coffee. Hospitality, in my Italian opinion, should be experienced extravagantly as if you’re a guest worth honoring (because you are).
During my graduate degree, I also had the privilege of more seriously pursuing dance and performance art. Soon, while working for a local ballet company, I returned to my old pointe work on the ballet stage., which you can read about in narrative form here. I’ll be forever grateful for the role the practice and performance of the fine arts played (and continues to play) in my life, allowing me to remember, revise, and repurpose life’s harshest moments.
Since living in the UV, I’ve worn many complimentary professional hats: English teacher, bookseller, ballet teacher, freelance designer, copywriter, and host at SCOUT in downtown WRJ, all while pursuing my dream of having a literary career. In 2020 and 2023, I also had the privilege of attending the Vermont Studio Center as a writer-in-residence, which was my first real experience of living in a community that valued and protected the time and space for artists to create. At the start of the pandemic, VSC planted a major seed of eleVe’s vision that’s now coming to fruition.
a t t a c k
Every good story starts with conflict, and mine is no different; since forever, it’s felt like my life’s been under attack. I know it sounds dramatic, but I went from childhood adverse effects to lawsuits to crimes to medicating it all away through substances to — despite my best efforts of fleeing the Guy Above — finally responding to Christ’s invitation to Love and Life. So, in no strength of my own, I rose up from the pile of charred dust my life had become, and almost twenty years later, haven’t looked back. Since that decision life certainly has not been peachy keen, but rather, a series of afflictions that have tested my faith beyond measures no human can bear.
When I was 32, my son only 10 months old, I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. It was the first time in my life where I experienced trauma that was physical. I went from being an athletic, healthy woman in her early 30s to severely sick with life-threatening complications & illness. After surviving the year of hell that was cancer treatments, I’m grateful to say I rang the bell in the Spring of 2023. Just when the darkness seemed to be retreating — a warm dim glow of hope peeking through the end of the road — my old man, who I was very close, with died in my arms. Nothing, not even cancer and its cruelties, could have prepared me for the loss that was my father. A new grief entered the scene and piled itself on top of my wearied body and waning spirit, flatlining me.
BUT as has been true my whole life, (a survivor’s “perk” of resilience), I turned an intimacy with grief into a new avenue of healing and creativity. In the void, there came a voice with something to say. So I used it — the pain — and sought meaning and beauty in and through every parallel thread and piercing thorn. The memories became motifs. The recurring themes and layered sensations: the signs of a Narrative far greater than me, which not only made the Shatterings more bearable, but the very pieces of life that most sharpen and strengthen me.
a p p r o a c h
My pedagogy has been shaped by a lifetime of study and craft mastery under some of the world’s most elite teachers: professional authors, gifted professors, generous mentors, caring coaches, and famous artists. As an instructor now myself, my goal is always to unlock my students’ innate artistry, inherent strength, and freedom through creative expression. Mostly, I do this through visual demonstrations, poetic language, and sharing stories to inspire their growth in wisdom and work ethic. My approach is to believe in people long before they may believe in themselves — pushing them with kindness (and lots of humor) towards the amazing potential I can see in their unique characters, bodies, and stories.
The level of fortitude I bring to my teaching and students is personal. I teach (and learn from) my clients, students, and peers to let no weakness go to waste. Because, I know this, no story is beyond saving; any pain can be repurposed: refined into gold.
eleVe’s home boutique studio
loft lobby
coffee & tea book bar
eleVe members enjoy complimentary tea, coffee, & chocolate!
a u t o b i o
[ b a l l e t b a c k g r o u n d ]
My background in ballet began at age three in Massachusetts under Ms. Kotelli (Boston Ballet Company). Coupled with competitive gymnastics, my childhood days were a blur of sweaty laundry, classical beauty, long nights at the gym, and too many blue Gatorades. When my family relocated to New Hampshire when I was 12, I left the studio behind for athletics, eventually playing high-level softball and being named a NH All-State player as a senior — Go Eagles! This ten year gap of time away from ballet allows me to empathize with many of my students who also haven’t danced “a straight path” to ballet. I take time to know my students in order to encourage them to do what they love doing, no matter how hard things can be physically or mentally. I can also understand the desire & drive to pursue athletic competition, as I did the same and still made it back to dancing later in life when the time was right. It’s my desire for my students and clients to feel valued and safe enough that they’re able to relate to me beyond just a dance/art instructor, but a coach for life they can trust.
I finally returned to ballet as a college sophomore, where I quickly found my way back to the barre and joined the UNH Dance Company. There, I trained for two years in classical ballet under the director at the time, Larry Robertson (Soloist, Boston Ballet), who cast me in his debut Argentine Tango Ballet. After graduating with a degree in English with a concentration in Writing & Film Studies, I rediscovered Northeastern Ballet Theatre and the legendary Edra Toth pictured on the right (principal dancer, Boston Ballet). As a survivor of the Hungarian Revolution who fled a war-torn country at age four, Ms. Edra’s teaching style was life-or-death. Her two-hour classes were a beautiful bootcamp where she preached that art is not a luxury, but a necessity for survival. The studio was her sanctuary, and as a company dancer performing en pointe in my twenties under her wing, it became one of mine, too.
As a graduate student at UNH (MFA in Creative Nonfiction), I joined NBT dance company and staff, where I had the privilege of performing in Edra’s productions ofThe Nutcracker (Waltz of the Flowers; Russian), Beauty & the Beast (Gaston’s Admirer), Paquita (corps de ballet), Coppelia (corps), among other ballets and showcases. With NBT, I also had the amazing opportunity of beginning my dance teaching career, gaining nearly a decade of experience instructing beginner children through advanced teens & adults, as well as single-handedly directing and running the Prince & Princess Camps for pre-k and kindergarten dancers.
My dancing life left the seacoast & entered the Upper Valley in 2018, when my husband and I moved to the area. Since then, I’ve had experience teaching junior high and high school English at a private school, attending writing residencies to invest in my literary career, and composing different youth dance classes through local rec centers. As an adult ballet dancer, I also had the pleasure of training under some local-legend-ballet-masters who have deeply shaped my dancing, my teaching, and eleVe’s philosophy.
The first of whom was the lovely Jackie Stanton (previous owner+director of White River Ballet Academy; current owner of Junction Dance Boutique). Jackie brought a rich mix of always fresh, creative choreography alongside a solid technical foundation shaped by her years working with and choreographing for professional ballet companies. Jackie also shaped me as a local business owner & director I could look up to and learn from; her passionate care and belief in each of her students has stuck with me. Her gift of interior design & bringing otherwise dead studios to life, impacted my dancing and teaching, and inspired a vision for seeing “the dance studio” not just as a space, but as a rich haven of creativity.
Through Jackie, I met the beautiful Ruth Mayer, also known as one of the UV’s dance community’s “best-kept secrets,” whose thorough, personalized instruction inspires, enlightens, and shapes every dancer who walks through her door. Ruth is a genius artist; her choreography artfully methodical, her insights brilliant. Ruth is perhaps the most generous teacher I’ve had the privilege of training under. Her 2-hour classical ballet classes are so rich with lessons for both life & dance. I can hardly scribble the notes down in between barre combinations fast enough as she organically shares troves of hard-won wisdom from an impressive career as an American Ballet Theatre soloist.
♡ shameless plug ♡ If you’re someone who wants to pursue a professional dancing career, I highly recommend both Jackie & Ruth as top, local masters of the artform.
▷ Read the full story about Edra’s life & influence, “Relevé: To Rise” written by Victoria Sottosanti & published by Creative Nonfiction Magazine.
“art is not a luxury, but a necessity for survival...”
c o d a ( c l o s e)
Every creation, no matter how complex, has a humble beginning. Despite eleVe only becoming official in January of 2026, all of these past experiences were seeds planted, waiting to come to fruition. As we’re still in the genesis phase, we’re so thankful for your support, whether through following along on socials, giving us your business, or funding our survivor scholarships and other initiatives.
We hope eleVe soon evolves into something sustainable and profitable, that we might continue to elevate our community’s quality of life through the unmatched, transformative power of practicing and performing fine art! So, thank you for joining eleVe here: at our foundation. Thank you for inspiring a new story we get to tell together through our dancing, moving, & making.
Now, let’s raise up our mugs & pointed feet for a toast… here’s to the painful glories of technical rigor, disciplined desire, creative healing, and the forever-study of the divine forms of making we call fine art. And remember, no matter what or where your life has been, it’s never too late to rise up again.
With love for you and your story, we hope to see you soon at the studio where story lives.
Looking up, always,
— V / eleVe
foundational values
Élevé: “Lifting up” or “elevating” our students, peers, and community through the transformative power of fine art.
Safety & Belonging: Creating an environment where every dancer and artist is seen, safe, and encouraged.
Narrative & Healing: Using dance, somatic movement, and story to reshape life’s valleys into art.
Technical Excellence: Master-level education delivered with passion, warmth, and low pressure (with a healthy dose of comic relief!).
Redemptive Artistry: Believing no story is beyond saving and every pain can be repurposed.
Joyful Perspective: Pursuing technical rigor without losing our sense of humor, collaborative joy, and personal growth.
Practice & Performance go hand-in-hand, whether you’re actually in or rehearsing for a showcase or just taking class, every class is a “stage,” every creation, a gift.
Being the studio where story lives (or is found…born…revised), and—most certainly—the place it never dies.