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.

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

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

  • Anthony Holland
  • Danielle Valentino
  • Deborah Weintraub
  • Jamarah Hayner
  • John Friedman
  • Lisa Quateman
  • Magdalena Edwards
  • Maricela Gomez
  • Mark Walsh
  • Mary Ann Braubach
  • Natalie Samarjian
  • Raymond Ejiofor
  • Tom Majich
  • Anthea Young
  • Himerria Wortham – Associate Artistic Director
  • Israel Heller
  • Justin Scheid
  • Keva Walker
  • Lenin Fernandez
  • Lily Ontiveros
  • Luke Dakota Zender
  • Myles Lavallee
  • Nicole Flores
  • Rafael Quintas
  • Raymond Ejiofor
  • Rebekah Denegal
  • Roberto C. Lambaren
  • Santiago Villarreal
  • Sarah Belle Reid
  • William Jay Ylvisaker
  • William Roper
  • Anna Chang – Communications Director
  • Debra J.T. Padilla – Senior Advisor
  • Giselle Vega – Production Associate
  • Himerria Wortham – Associate Artistic Director
  • Lily Ontiveros
  • Lyn Paz – Bookkeeper
  • Mariana Perez-Seda – Production Manager
  • Raphaelle Ziemba – Managing Director
  • Andrea Burr
  • Darby Epperson
  • Dominique McDougal
  • Himerria Wortham – Associate Artistic Director
  • Jasmine Rafael
  • Knicole Haggins
  • Maureen Asic
  • Nicole Flores
  • Rafael Quintas
  • Raymond Ejiofor
  • Sydney Lozier
  • TJ Spaur
  • William Jay Ylvisaker

supporters

heidi duckler dance is proud to be supported by the contributions of these generous individuals and organizations.

  • Teresa ‘Toogie’ Barcelo
  • Liliane Corzo
  • Olga Garay-English
  • Sylivia Drew Ivie
  • Lorcan O’Herlihy
  • Jan Perry
  • Sarah Pillsbury
  • Craig Watson
  • 2020
    Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Los Angeles, CA
    LA Opera, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2019
    NoMad Hotel & Please Do Not Enter, Los Angeles, CA
    MATT Construction, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2018
    Palos Verdes Art Center & Amadi Carpets, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2017
    Culver City Centennial & City of Culver City, Culver City, CA
  • 2016
    Autry Museum of the American West & Trust for Historic Preservation, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2015
    Canal Convergence, Scottsdale, AZ
  • 2014
    Brisbane Festival, Brisbane, Australia
    ODC Walking Distances Dance Festival, San Francisco, CA
  • 2013
    Reed College Center for the Performing Arts, Portland, OR
    Flux Projects, Atlanta, GA
  • 2012
    Barlow Respiratory Hospital, Los Angeles, CA
    Van Nuys FlyAway Terminal, Van Nuys, CA
  • 2010
    Long Beach Arts Council, Long Beach, CA
    9th International Festival on the Volga, Yaroslavl, Russia
    “Meet Me at the Metro” Watts Village Theatre Company, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2009
    Brookfield Properties, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2008
    Saint Joseph Ballet, Santa Ana, CA
    Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
  • 2007
    Hong Kong Urban Dance Festival
  • 2006
    City of Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV
  • 2004
    Yiddishkayt Festival, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2001
    On Site Network (Dancing in the Streets in partnership with Miami Light)
  • 2020
    Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Los Angeles, CA
  • LA Opera, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2019
    NoMad Hotel & Please Do Not Enter, Los Angeles, CA
    MATT Construction, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2018
    Palos Verdes Art Center & Amadi Carpets, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2017
    Culver City Centennial & City of Culver City, Culver City, CA
  • 2016
    Autry Museum of the American West & Trust for Historic Preservation, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2015
    Canal Convergence, Scottsdale, AZ
  • 2014
    Brisbane Festival, Brisbane, Australia
    ODC Walking Distances Dance Festival, San Francisco, CA
  • 2013
    Reed College Center for the Performing Arts, Portland, OR
    Flux Projects, Atlanta, GA
  • 2012
    Barlow Respiratory Hospital, Los Angeles, CA
    Van Nuys FlyAway Terminal, Van Nuys, CA
  • 2010
    Long Beach Arts Council, Long Beach, CA
    9th International Festival on the Volga, Yaroslavl, Russia
    “Meet Me at the Metro” Watts Village Theatre Company, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2009
    Brookfield Properties, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2008
    Saint Joseph Ballet, Santa Ana, CA
    Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
  • 2007
    Hong Kong Urban Dance Festival
  • 2006
    City of Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV
  • 2004
    Yiddishkayt Festival, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2001
    On Site Network (Dancing in the Streets in partnership with Miami Light)

history

Founded in 1985, Heidi Duckler Dance (HDD) continues to redefine the relationship between audience and art. HDD has developed a participatory and transparent practice in which each project is generated in collaboration with the community it serves. All rehearsals and engagement activities take place onsite and culminate in landmark performances tailored to foster community bonds.

Over the past 35 years, HDD has produced over 400 original works locally, nationally and internationally, creating interdisciplinary performances in many iconic locations, including: the Ambassador Hotel, LA City Hall, Van Nuys Flyaway Bus Terminal, Dunbar Hotel and on the Tall Ships at the Port of LA and in many diverse LA neighborhoods, including: Downtown LA (the Historic Core, Arts District, Produce District and Fashion District), Boyle Heights, Koreatown, Studio City, Van Nuys, Hollywood, Venice, San Pedro and South LA – as well as cities across the Greater LA Area, including: the Antelope Valley, West Hollywood, Culver City, Santa Monica, Agoura Hills, Ventura, Rancho Palos Verdes, San Bernardino and San Gabriel.  Duckler also frequently creates work in Portland, Oregon with HDD’s sister company, Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest.

HDD’s programs reach more than 7,500 individuals each year. Its youth arts education programs, established in 2013, have served over 10,000 youth and families at over 25 schools and community centers throughout the City, with an emphasis on low-income communities. HDD is a company of 12 resident artists and 5 staff committed to upholding inclusiveness, consciousness, vulnerability, and connectivity through their craft.

This year HDD was awarded grants for upcoming performances and arts education initiatives including; LA County Arts Commission, California Arts Council, LA Dept of Cultural Affairs, The Ralph Parsons Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, DEW Foundation, California Community Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.