Dancing Her Way to the Olympics

The moment Elizabeth Stamoulis remembers most about performing at the closing ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens is the sound of the audience when she entered the arena.

“You always hear it described as the roar of the crowd,” says the intellectual property attorney. “I couldn’t see anybody because it was dark, but you could hear how many people were there. I’d never been in front of that many people before, and my breath got taken away.”

Stamoulis, who lives in Florida and is originally from New Jersey, has been practicing Greek dance her entire life. Growing up in a large Greek Orthodox community, she says, dance was a large part of local gatherings, and it was there that she first learned the movements.

“Our church would have big dances, and all the kids would be running around,” she says. “I would just kind of mimic what everyone else was doing. My life was basically like My Big Fat Greek Wedding growing up. The Greek music would come on, and we’d start dancing.”

It soon became apparent that Stamoulis had a talent and passion for the practice. She began taking classes through the church, and by the age of 12 she was asked to join a professional group.

That troupe, Hellenic Dancers of New Jersey, performed throughout the state and in neighboring areas—and it was that group, when Stamoulis was in high school, that was asked to audition for the Olympics. Stamoulis tried out and was one of only four dancers from the group who made the final cut and one of only two who went on to perform in the closing ceremony.

“I was over the moon,” she says. “I almost couldn’t believe it was real.”

Having family in Athens, Stamoulis’ parents were determined to make the trip happen. The type of Greek dance that Stamoulis performs has thousands of variations, most of which reflect the idiosyncrasies of the region whence they originated.

“They say that the island dancers [do] more dipping and rising, and it’s almost like a wave,” says Stamoulis. “And then the mountains are more hopping and jumping, because you have to hop over rocks. There [are] all different flavors.”

The dances she performed in the closing ceremony were the Tsakonikos, in which a circle of dancers coil into a snail-shaped formation with arms linked, and Kalamatianos, the most popular Greek folk dance.

But it wasn’t just dances that she learned while at the Olympics. Upon her arrival, Stamoulis was told she would be performing with a large group of people for a short period of time. Knowing her skills exceeded that position, she raised her hand and told the director, “I think I can do more.”

Stamoulis was then put in a smaller group of dancers with longer, more complicated choreography. 

“It was intimidating, but I felt like I had more to give,” she says.

Stamoulis’ years spent performing have informed her legal practice today, as a Stanford-educated lawyer and a partner at Williams Parker in Sarasota.

“My experience with the arts informed where I ended up with intellectual property law because I focused my practice on the creative side of that [work],” she says. “And I’ve been in front of crowds my whole life, so I think I’m a little more comfortable presenting to people. Dance makes you think on your feet—no pun intended.”