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 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.
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.
- 2021
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2008
- 2007
- 2006
- 2005
- 2004
- 2003
- 2002
- 2001
- 2000
- 1999
- 1998
- 1997
OFFICIAL SELECTION – Dance Camera West
2020
Department of Cultural Affairs, Public Art, Los Angeles, Panelist
National Arts and Disability Center, Panelist
New Music/USA, Panelist
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
Official Selection – ScreenDance Miami Festival
2019
- Panelist, LACMA, New Engagement with Historic Places
- Oregon Dance Film Commission, Choreographer and Director
- Best Choreography for the Lens, Verve Dance Film Festival
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
- Lester Horton Award, Artist Appreciation
- Panelist, Santa Monica Artists Fellowship
- Oregon Art in Public Places Roster
2015
- TedxUCLA speaker
- Panelist, Santa Monica Artists Fellowships for 2016
2014
- Los Angeles County Art Commission Civic Artists Prequalified List
2013
- Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Emerald 20th Anniversary recipient of the MAVERICK AWARD
- Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences
2012
- 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
- 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”
- Featured in the anthology, “Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces”
2008
- Los Angeles County Arts Commission Arts Leadership Initiative
- 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
- Panelist for L.A. County Arts Commission
- 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
2006
- Panelist, Site-Specific Symposium, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, NYC
2005
- California DanceMaker Grant (James Irvine Foundation)
- National College Choreography Initiative
- Panelist, Durfee ARC Awards
2004
- coming soon
2003
- California DanceMaker Grant (James Irvine Foundation)
- Landmark Award, Backstage West
- Southern California Development Forum Award
2002
- City of Los Angeles Individual Artist’s Fellowship (C.O.L.A.)
- 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
- Back Stage West Landmark Award
2001
- Director, Dance in the Workplace, film commissioned by Grand Performances and Arts Partners
- Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, Performance, Music, and Lighting Design for After Eden
- Lester Horton Award nominee for Sustained Achievement
2000
- Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Set Design and Costume Design
- California Choreography Fellowship from the California Arts Council
1999
- 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
- 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
- Member California Plaza Task Force, Los Angeles, CA
- Speaker on Interdisciplinary Performance at California Institute of the Arts
