Music & Art Creator // Community Arts Leader

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Katie Elevitch (she/they) is a Rockland County, NY based multi-arts storytelling artist and director, an award-nominated arts educator, and the Founder and Executive Director of StorySpace Arts, a mission driven inter-generational non-profit Artist Collaborative based in Nyack, NY.

A performing artist since the age of 11, taking part in public and private school and summer theater and music programs and productions in Rockland County and NYC, Elevitch is one of the youngest theater artists to be accepted into and attend Circle in the Square’s Summer Theater Intensive at Skidmore College (1988).

As a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and recording artist Elevitch has shared stages and written, recorded and performed with Grammy- and Emmy-Nominated jazz and rock musicians and producers, receiving critical acclaim for her live performances and her recorded projects (Village Voice, The Big Takeover, Lucid Culture).

Elevitch graduated Cum Laude from Barnard College, Columbia University (Women’s Studies/Music/Performance, B.A. 1996), studied music at Mannes College of Music/New School and was mentored by Performance Artist/Educator Holly Hughes, Dance/Theater Artist Sara Pearson, Hip Hop Artist/Activist Rha Goddess, Musician/Composer Ed Pastorini and Jazz Artist Peter Apfelbaum.

After taking part in multiple NYC and Brooklyn, NY showcases produced by the  Women’s Feminist Hip Hop/Spoken Word/Performance Artist Collectives “W.E.R.I.S.E” (led by Imani Uzuri & Rozz Nash) and “DAWTAHZ” (1998-2001), Elevitch went on to curate and produce a series of New Artist Music & Performance Showcases throughout Brooklyn, NY, including “Strange Brew” (2000-2002) and “M’Sonic Sessions” (Brooklyn Masonic Temple, 2006-2009).

Elevitch is known for her riveting, fearless live performances. She has toured Europe as a singer-songwriter and has supported her various music releases and band projects at such NYC venues as Joe’s Pub, The Blue Note, Mercury Lounge and more. As a poet and performance artist she has performed at NYC’s WOW Café, Barnard College, the Bowery Poetry Club and was a 2017 Rockland Poet’s Women’s Slam Finalist.

In 2007 Katie moved back to Rockland County to care for her aging mother and to reconnect more deeply with nature and to the healing arts. While studying for her 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, Katie immersed herself in the lower Hudson Valley arts scene, creating strong relationships with local area musicians, theater, visual and literary artists, and arts and social justice organizers. Her focus shifted from performing to serving the community.

Since 2015 she has donated her talents and creative consulting to Community Benefits as a performer in support of the Rockland County Pride Center (2016), Love Yourself Organization (Union Arts Center, 2016, Invited by artist Charlotte Mouquin), Bel-Ans Art Center Women & Art Celebration (2016), Center for Safety and Change “She Is”, April 2023 and 2024/The X House, and the Arts Council of Rockland, June 2023.

In June of 2016, she instigated, organized and produced a community wide fundraiser and visibility campaign with the Nyack Art Collective for the Rockland County Pride Center in partnership with the Rockland County Pride Center, Nyack Art Collective and Casa Del Sol in Nyack, NY. The event, hosted by Drag Performer/Singer Alex Francisco featured live music including Jennifer O’Connor, as well as a live art auction and art show. The Mayor of Nyack, Jen White, wrote a letter of support and celebration for Elevitch and NAC, with Deputy Mayor Don Hammond in attendance to read it.

(FROM HOME) Elevitch was awarded a 2023 Artist Grant from ArtsWestchester for her multi-media interactive story installation “Abandoned Places: Sight, Stories, Sound”, exhibited at Rockland Center for the Arts, and a 2018 Community Arts Grant for her “Women’s Storytelling Project” which exhibited at Garner Arts Center and 95 1/2 MAIN Gallery.

Most recently, StorySpace Arts received a 2025 Arts4All Grant from the ArtsCouncil of Rockland for the “Listening Room”, a program Elevitch curates and hosts. In 2024, StorySpace Arts received an ArtsAlive Grant Award from ArtsWestchester for “Arts Incubator Spaces for All: Open Mic & Cypher Plug n’ Play”, a collaboration between Elevitch & Hip Hop Artist Cedric St. Louis.

(FROM HOME - to incorporate)

She also launched, funded and directed the Downtown Nyack, NY Storefront Creative Art Spaces 95 ½ MAIN Gallery (2017-2019) and Studio 101 (2023-Present) with the intention that each space become the physical manifestation of the community who needs it - an immersive, interactive creative project unto itself - the physical homes of community storytelling for creatives, women, youth, and members of the LGBTQ+ communities.

StorySpace Arts and its incubator spaces bring people together to explore, develop and share their authentic voices and stories in safer spaces created by their own community. The ongoing monthly Open Mic Program for All (2018-present) is an example of one of the long running programs of StorySpace Arts that is heralded by supporters and participants as truly accessible to all.

At the end of Elevitch’s March 2020 TedX talk at Bergen Community College: “Community Story Space as Revolution” - unknowingly prepared and performed on the eve of a worldwide Pandemic - Elevitch asks a pointed question: “What would happen if every Main Street in America had a Community Story Space?”

Elevitch’s community focused projects and programs over the last 10+ years, and her on-going resilience during and after the Pandemic, has shown that Rockland County, Nyack and the surrounding area has immensely benefited from her artistry, vision and leadership.

storyspacearts@gmail.com