To us, democratic dance means dancing at age 6 or 65. Democratic dance means dancing in your bathroom, in a laundromat, in a bridge underpass. Democratic dance means using movement as a tool for survival, resistance, healing, and growth. We use movement to address intersectional topics affecting our society, especially its vulnerable populations.
Our educational vision is rooted in exploration. We have served thousands of underserved youth and families across Los Angeles. With several unique education programs for schools, after school programs, seniors, veterans, and correctional facilities, we seek to be a vehicle for self-expression, confidence, inclusion, and collaboration.
Our practice of spatial justice involves activating space through dance and increasing accessibility to these spaces. Using the body as a vehicle, we believe dance drives discovery. In an effort to make Los Angeles a more animated and equitable city, HDD’s artistic offerings reveal truths about historic landmarks, reawaken abandoned places, and turn the spaces we seemingly know well on their heads.
Racial Equity Statement
It’s important to remind ourselves of the core beliefs embedded in HDD’s Racial Equity Statement, which has been adopted by the Board and has been a guiding factor to how we program and engage with the community.
Heidi Duckler
Heidi Duckler is the Artistic Director and founder of Heidi Duckler Dance in Los Angeles, California and Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Duckler has created more than 300 original dance works at unique sites in Australia, Germany, Russia, Hong Kong, Cuba, Chile, Canada, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, and throughout Southern California.
Duckler earned a BS in Dance from the University of Oregon and an MA in Choreography from UCLA. Awards include the Distinguished Dance Alumna award from the University of Oregon School in Music and Dance, the Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences award, and the National Endowment of the Arts American Masterpiece award for her work touring laundromats, “Laundromatinee”. She has been honored with the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival’s Maverick Award, and LA Weekly’s Best Site-Specific Dance Company Los Angeles, and was featured as a Tedx UCLA speaker in 2015. She is currently artist in residence with her company at the Martin Luther King Community Hospital Campus funded through NEA Art Works and the California Arts Council and she is in production on several dance films including a commission from the Portland Dance Film Festival.
Heidi Duckler
Heidi Duckler is the Founder and Artistic Director of Heidi Duckler Dance in Los Angeles, California and Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Titled the “reigning queen of site-specific performance” by the LA Times, Duckler is a pioneer of site-specific place based contemporary practice. Through the use of expanded techniques and a methodology that encourages us to understand how dance, born from our experience, can be a tool for awareness, Duckler has contributed to redefining the field and has created more than 500 dance pieces all over the world.
Duckler was the recipient of the 2021 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship and most recently, her film “Where We’re Going” has been selected for first prize by the Cinedanza Festival jury amongst 28 films from around the world. “Where We’re Going” was also selected for the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) Digital Media Wall in their new building in downtown Sacramento, scheduled to premiere in 2022. Currently, Duckler is on faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Film and Media Studies Department.
Duckler earned a BS in Dance from the University of Oregon and an MA in Choreography from UCLA, and served as a Board Member of the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance Advancement Council. Awards include the Distinguished Dance Alumna award from the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance, the Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences award, and the National Endowment of the Arts American Masterpiece award. Duckler was a recipient of the 2019 Oregon Dance Film Commission and her work received the award for Best Choreography for the Lens at Verve Dance Film Festival.
artistic process
“As a choreographer I’ve imbued non-traditional sites with performances for more than 30 years. The strength and distinctiveness of my work depends on a solid foundation of place, be it geographical, cultural, social, historical, architectural, environmental, political and/or personal. Location, history, and community have inspired my work, yet my choreography has evolved with each place. Sites are catalysts and collaborators within my choreographic process.”
Working with a diverse range of dancers, I negotiate performers’ movement styles around architecture, audience members, and each other. With input from creative partners and collaborators (dancers, musicians, architects and community members, among others), a truly site-specific and environmentally responsive work emerges, capturing the multiple dimensions of each place, performer, and collaborator.” – Heidi Duckler
Artistic Process
Heidi Duckler is a pioneer of site specific place based contemporary practice. Through the use of expanded techniques and a methodology that encourages us to understand how dance, born from our experience, can be a tool for awareness, Duckler has contributed to redefining the field. Her dances invite us to reconsider the space we live in, the space we take up, and this helps us to communicate our personal experience to others, to speak up, to inspire, to incorporate hard truths into the vulnerable body and pursue the search for empathetic connectivity. Duckler leads an award winning company, by pushing away from cultural voyeurism, seeking civic engagement and recognizing emotional sincerity. Her choreography and movement is revealed in the landscape and community response in which it is created and both triggers memory and embodies a current condition.
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2023
Official Selection – Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival
Heidi Duckler
Guest Professor, University of Southern California
2022
Official Selection – The IndieFEST Film Awards
Heidi Duckler
Panelist, Los Angeles County Arts & Health Week Summit
Professor of Screen Dance, University of California Santa Barbara
Guest Artist, American College Dance Association Northwest Conference
Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest
Official Selection – Manifest (The Auro Apear Dance-Film Festival)
Official Selection – The Outlet Dance Project
Official Selection – Film Fest by Rogue Dancer
2021
Official Selection – Dance Camera West
Official Selection – ScreenDance Miami Festival
Official Selection – Winner Best Dance/Musical – SHORT to the Point Festival
Official Selection – First Prize Winner – Cinedanza Festival Italy
Official Selection – Best Experimental Short – Bitesize Film Festival
Official Selection – Audience Choice Award – Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema
Official Selection – ARCHIBA Film Festival
Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest
Official Selection – Demetera International Film Festival
2020
Honorable Mention – Mexico City International Videodance Festival
Best Cinematography – Portland Dance Film Fest
Official Selection – Bucharest International Dance Film Festival
Official Selection – CAPITOL Dance & Cinema Festival
Official Selection – Cascadia Dance & Cinema Festival
Official Selection – Fintdaz International Festival – Chile
Official Selection – Kinetoscope: International Screendance Film Festival
Official Selection – Los Angeles Dance Shorts Film Festival – Virtual
Official Selection – InShadow – Lisbon Screendance Festival
Heidi Duckler
Department of Cultural Affairs, Public Art, Los Angeles, Panelist
National Arts and Disability Center, Panelist
New Music/USA, Panelist
Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest
Official Selection – Trans(m)it Lost Dances
Official Selection – Tiny Dance Film Festival
Official Selection – Spring Grove International Film Festival
Official Selection – Opine Dance Film Festival
Official Selection – Moving Images Videodance Festival
Official Selection – Klamath Independent Film Festival
Official Selection – Flatlands Dance Film Festival
Official Selection – Exchange Choreography Festival Online
Official Selection – [C]Screen DanceFilm Spring Festival
Official Selection – Bogota Music Video Festival
2019
Heidi Duckler
- LACMA, New Engagement with Historic Places, Panelist
- Oregon Dance Film Commission, Choreographer and Director
Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest
- Best Choreography for the Lens – Verve Dance Film Festival
- 2nd Place Winner – Verve Dance Film Festival
- Audience Award – Portland Dance Film Festival
- Official Selection – Canby Film Festival
- Official Selection – IMARP – Mostra Internacional de Dança – Imagens em Movimento – Video Dança
2018
- Certificate of Congressional Recognition, Judy Chu, Ph.D, Member of Congress, 27th District
- Certificate of Congressional Recognition, Ted W. Lieu, Member of Congress, 33rd District
- State of California Senate Certificate of Recognition, Senator Holly J. Mitchell
2017
- LA Department of Cultural Affairs, Prequalified List of Festival Producers/Programmers
2016
Heidi Duckler
- Lester Horton Award, Artist Appreciation
- Panelist, Santa Monica Artists Fellowship
Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest
- Oregon Art in Public Places Roster
2015
Heidi Duckler
- TedxUCLA speaker
- Panelist, Santa Monica Artists Fellowships for 2016
2014
- Los Angeles County Art Commission Civic Artists Prequalified List
2013
- Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences
Heidi Duckler
- Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Emerald 20th Anniversary recipient of the MAVERICK AWARD
2012
Heidi Duckler
- Distinguished Alumnus – University of Oregon School of Music & Dance
2011
- Certificate of Commendation Awarded by Councilwoman Jan Perry on behalf of the City of Los Angeles State of California
Heidi Duckler
- Panelist for Director’s Lab West and the Theatre Communications Group
2010
- National Endowment for the Arts, American Masterpiece for “Laundromatinee”
2009
- National Endowment for the Arts, Artistic Excellence for “A Guide to an Exhibitionist”
Heidi Duckler
- Featured in the anthology, “Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces”
2008
- Los Angeles County Arts Commission Arts Leadership Initiative
Heidi Duckler
- Finalist, Sherwood Award, Center Theatre Group
- Panelist, Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission
- Mayor’s Cultural Master Plan Advisory Committee for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
2007
- Invited Showcase for Performance West, Western Arts Alliance Conference
- Leslie Horton Dance Awards nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design, Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design, Outstanding Achievement in Music, and Outstanding Achievement in Choreography Long Form for C’Opera
Heidi Duckler
- Panelist for L.A. County Arts Commission
- Yaddo Residency
2006
Heidi Duckler
- Panelist, Site-Specific Symposium, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, NYC
2005
- California DanceMaker Grant (James Irvine Foundation)
- National College Choreography Initiative
Heidi Duckler
- Panelist, Durfee ARC Awards
2003
- California DanceMaker Grant (James Irvine Foundation)
Heidi Duckler
- Landmark Award, Backstage West
- Southern California Development Forum Award
2002
- Lester Horton Award for Outstanding Company Performance
- Lester Horton Award nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Music for Dance, Set Design, and Performance—Small Ensemble for Cover Story
Heidi Duckler
- City of Los Angeles Individual Artist’s Fellowship (C.O.L.A.)
- Back Stage West Landmark Award
2001
- Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, Performance, Music, and Lighting Design for After Eden
Heidi Duckler
- Director, Dance in the Workplace, film commissioned by Grand Performances and Arts Partners
- Lester Horton Award nominee for Sustained Achievement
2000
Heidi Duckler
- Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, Performance, Music, and Lighting Design
- California Choreography Fellowship from the California Arts Council
1999
Heidi Duckler
- Peer Panelist for Cultural Affairs Department, City of Los Angeles
- Member of Cultural Planning/Arts for L.A.
- Member Dance/USA
1998
- Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, Outstanding Achievement in Performance, Outstanding Achievement in Production, Outstanding Achievement in Music for the production of Most Wanted
- Lester Horton Awards nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Set Design, Lighting Design, and Sustained Achievement for the production of Most Wanted
Heidi Duckler
- Peer Panelist for Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission
- Selected participant of On Site Performance Network, Dancing in the Streets
- Editor of Dance Zine; Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Dance Resource Center of Los Angeles, CA
1997
Heidi Duckler
- Member California Plaza Task Force, Los Angeles, CA
- Speaker on Interdisciplinary Performance at California Institute of the Arts
Jamarah Hayner, Treasurer
Anthony Holland