Alissa Elegant is a dance artist and scholar researching and practicing Chinese dance and ballet. She practiced Chinese dance in the diaspora and on a Fulbright Fellowship in Beijing, taking classes at Minzu University, and participating in field research alongside local professors. Her foundational ballet training is with Ronn Guidi of the Oakland Ballet Company, who is known for reconstructing early modern ballets. She has set pieces on the dance company World Dance Fusion and showed work at Dixon Place in New York. She earned an MFA in choreography from Temple University and is working toward a PhD in dance studies at Ohio State University. Her essay "Dancing Revolutionary Change: China Railway Cultural Work Troupe's Dance Drama Wang Gui yu Li Xiangxiang" won a Dance Study Association 2021  Selma Jeanne Cohen Award.