 Elaine Summers was born in Perth, Australia and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts with her mother and her younger brother John.Although she took self-paid dance classes through adolescence, she first studied Art Education and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1947.In 1951 Elaine Summers came to New York and attended classes at the Juilliard School of Dance, together with Paul Taylor and Carolyn Brown.