Human Being
Sarah Meyer-Waldo grew up in West Bath Maine with her parents, Julie Meyer and Jonathan Waldo, and her younger brother, Asa. She started participating in musical theater performances at the age of 12, which led her to begin studying ballet at the age of 13 at Elizabeth Drucker’s Ballet School in Topsham, Maine. She has also studied at Ballet Chicago, Thomas School of Dance in Bangor, Maine, and with Miss Annabelle’s Dance Studio in Midcoast Maine. In high school she choreographed musicals for middle and high school aged students and in college taught ballet classes on campus and for upper elementary through college aged students in the greater Bangor area.
Sarah is the great granddaughter of Abraham Moshin, a Jewish refugee who fled the pogroms in Ukraine in 1903. The name Moshin was changed to Meyer at Ellis Island. The family story goes that Moshin came from an orthodox family in Ukraine, but when his father was killed while Moshin was still young, Moshin became an atheist. He left behind three sisters and his mother when he fled to the United States in 1903. Moshin had three sons, Paul, Roger, and Sarah’s maternal grandfather, Allen Meyer.
While raised with a Jewish identity, Sarah was not raised in a religious setting; the descendants of Moshin remained connected to Judaism but disconnected from religion, as he himself was. Unaffiliated and uninvolved with a synagogue growing up, Sarah’s religious Jewish experience consisted of lighting Shabbat candles at home and the occasional family Passover seder. Her religious and spiritual involvement grew when she began her undergraduate career at the University of Maine, and became involved in the campus Hillel – the Jewish student organization. During college she has served three years as the Hillel president, as well as two years on the Board of Directors of Congregation Beth El Bangor (CBE). She has also taught religious school and led services and other spiritual programs at CBE in this time. Her self-grown Jewish spiritual and religious identities have become increasingly important in her life, and have greatly influenced her creative work, My Dance of Life: Teshuvah, drawing from feelings and ideas from the tradition.
Sarah will be graduating in May, 2022 with a B.S in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Robotics. After graduation, Sarah will start a full-time job as a Software Engineer at PTC at their Kepware/Portland, ME office. Along with practicing dance and poetry, Sarah has always loved to sing, occasionally paints for fun, and is currently learning how to play guitar. She also enjoys hiking and camping and otherwise spending time outdoors, both in movement and in meditation. She feels most alive while practicing art, immersed in the outdoors, or engaging with her Jewish heritage and community.