By Carol Olechowski raduate student Elizabeth Hamilton will always remember the summer of 2000. It was the summer she did what, for most dancers, would be a distant and unattainable dream: She danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Her feat is all the more remarkable because �the funny thing is that I�m not a dancer,� says Hamilton, who earned her B.A. in communications from the University at Albany last May and is now a graduate student in the Department of Theatre. �I�ve always had an interest in performance art, but I never categorized myself as strictly a dancer.� The Staten Island native attributes her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to taking a movement class with UAlbany theatre instructor Ione Beauchamp. With her colleague Leigh Stimbeck, Beauchamp �works to bring together the worlds of movement, which is contact oriented — not at all the type of dancing people are used to seeing, — and acting,� Hamilton explains. Through Beauchamp, Hamilton learned of a two-week workshop called the �White Oak Dance Project,� named for Baryshnikov�s White Oak Dance Company. �I took part in the workshop with the White Oak dancers, Baryshnikov, and other participants at LaGuardia High School in New York City,� recalls the 22-year-old Hamilton, who plans to complete her graduate work by December 2001. Among her memories of the summer, her first meeting with Baryshnikov is a standout. �I arrived for my first workshop early, and he was eating wonton soup. For a split second I didn�t realize that it was him. It�s funny when I think back, because I see myself in basketball shorts and a T-shirt. I was an athlete sporting athletic clothing among these dancers in leotards,� says Hamilton, who was a member of UAlbany�s cross-country and track and field teams as an undergraduate. Baryshnikov, she adds, �was easy to talk to, and he and his dancers welcomed new ideas. I wasn�t so intimidated after a few classes. I realized that I already knew what was being taught because I had learned it in Ione�s class the previous semester.� Hamilton is now rehearsing the role of Phaedra in Hippolytus, which opens at the Performing Arts Center�s Lab Theatre in March. Beauchamp and Stimbeck are producing the show, which Stimbeck adapted from the original Greek tragedy. After graduation, Hamilton says, �I hope to continue performing. It�s a challenging career and keeps you on your toes. �I consider myself lucky to have met Ione,� adds Hamilton. �By asking me to take part in this project with Baryshnikov, she boosted my confidence as a performer. I realize that I won�t be as lucky once I get into the real world of auditioning. I can only hope that someone else will believe in me as much as she did.�