A Culture-Bearer Passes On: Elaine Peters Dies At 70

by Lucy Gellman, Jan. 16, 2025, Arts Paper

Elaine Peters at last year’s Caribbean Heritage Festival on the New Haven Green. For those who knew her, Coconut was forever by her side.

Lucy Gellman File Photo.

Elaine Peters at last year’s Caribbean Heritage Festival on the New Haven Green. For those who knew her, Coconut was forever by her side. Photo: Lucy Gellman

Elaine Peters had the spirit of dance inside of her. As a girl, she set the stage ablaze at the Bowen-Peters School of Dance, where her father and stepmother were the founders and she taught for years. In New York, she soared through work with the late Lavinia Williams and members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Back home, a spirited conga line seemed to follow her across the city, from the New Haven city bus to the city’s Caribbean Heritage Festival. Her chihuahua, Coconut, was often dancing along in her arms or at her feet.
Now, New Haven must carry on that rich legacy without her. Peters, a skilled dancer, drummer and visual artist who built community through the arts and for decades led New Haven’s Kwanzaa celebrations, died late last month [December 2024] at the age of 70. She is survived by her siblings, Jomo and Ntombi Peters, her daughter, Tulani Peters-Adger, and a host of friends who are feeling her loss acutely.

In New Haven, she leaves behind a community wracked by grief, from former dance sisters and peers at the New Haven Free Public Library to drummers who can’t imagine a healing circle without her. She was also an active and longtime member of New York’s East Coast Village, a retreat dedicated to Indigenous ancestral wisdom and helmed by the late Malidoma Somé.

“She had a personality where she just embraced life—she would just take you where she wanted to take you, you were just happy to be along for the ride,” recalled her younger brother, Jomo Peters, in a phone call last week. “She loved to celebrate, she celebrated love and life and togetherness. There was always a spark in her. I’ve never encountered anyone else who could do that. She could make any situation a celebration.”

[To read the article in its entirety and to see more photos, please go to https://tinyurl.com/mrw9su5c]