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 place-based contemporary practice. Her methodology emphasizes how dance, born from individual experience, can be a tool for awareness. She has created over 500 original works.
Duckler’s 2019 short film “Where We’re Going” was recently selected for the 2023 Aphelion Film Festival, and her 2022 film “The Tender Bondy Sings” was selected for the 2023 IndieFEST Film Awards Festival. In September, Duckler will speak at the Creatives in Conversation Conference held by the American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles chapter. 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. She also served as a board member of the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance Advancement Council. Her 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.
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. Her gestural movement practice transfers across people and places and links the condition of choreography to human action. 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. This understanding of dance applies to far reaching conceptual inquiry and fields of production that include film, photography, architecture and urban living and often involves collaboration. Duckler leads an award winning company seeking civic engagement and recognizing emotional sincerity. Her work is revealed in the landscape and community response in which it is created and both triggers memory and embodies current conditions.
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2023
Heidi Duckler Dance
Official Selection – Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival
Official Selection – Aphelion Film Festival
Official Selection – TheIndieFEst Film Awards
Official Selection – Short Stop International Film Festival
Heidi Duckler
Guest Professor – University of Southern California
Professor of Screen Dance – University of California Santa Barbara
Speaker – American Institute of Architects LA Creatives in Conversation Conference
Panelist – The Political Mandate of the Arts series from the Wende Museum
2022
Heidi Duckler Dance
Official Selection – The IndieFEST Film Awards
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
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
2021
Heidi Duckler Dance
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
Heidi Duckler Dance
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 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
Heidi Duckler
Panelist – Department of Cultural Affairs, Public Art, Los Angeles,
Panelist – National Arts and Disability Center
Panelist – New Music/USA
2019
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
Heidi Duckler
Panelist – LACMA, New Engagement with Historic Places
Choreographer and Director – Oregon Dance Film Commission
2018
Heidi Duckler Dance
Certificate of Congressional Recognition – Judy Chu, PhD, 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
Heidi Duckler Dance
LA Department of Cultural Affairs, Prequalified List of Festival Producers/Programmers
2016
Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest
Oregon Art in Public Places Roster
Heidi Duckler
Winner – Lester Horton Award, Artist Appreciation
Panelist – Santa Monica Artists Fellowship
2015
Heidi Duckler
TedxUCLA speaker
Panelist, Santa Monica Artists Fellowships for 2016
2014
Heidi Duckler Dance
Los Angeles County Art Commission Civic Artists Prequalified List
2013
Heidi Duckler Dance
Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences
Heidi Duckler
Winner – Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Emerald 20th Anniversary Maverick Award
2012
Heidi Duckler
Distinguished Alumnus – University of Oregon School of Music & Dance
2011
Heidi Duckler Dance
Certificate of Commendation – Awarded by Councilwoman Jan Perry on behalf of the City of Los Angeles State of California
Heidi Duckler
Panelist – Director’s Lab West and the Theatre Communications Group
2010
Heidi Duckler Dance
National Endowment for the Arts – American Masterpiece for “Laundromatinee”
2009
Heidi Duckler Dance
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
Heidi Duckler Dance
Los Angeles County Arts Commission Arts Leadership Initiative
Heidi Duckler
Finalist – Sherwood Award, Center Theatre Group
Panelist – Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission
Member – Mayor’s Cultural Master Plan Advisory Committee for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
2007
Heidi Duckler Dance
Invitee – Showcase for Performance West, Western Arts Alliance Conference
Nominee – Leslie Horton Dance Awards 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 – L.A. County Arts Commission
Yaddo Residency
2006
Heidi Duckler
Panelist – Site-Specific Symposium, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, NYC
2005
Heidi Duckler Dance
Recipient – California DanceMaker Grant (James Irvine Foundation)
National College Choreography Initiative
Heidi Duckler
Panelist – Durfee ARC Awards
2003
Heidi Duckler Dance
Recipient – California DanceMaker Grant (James Irvine Foundation)
Heidi Duckler
Winner – Landmark Award, Backstage West
Winner – Southern California Development Forum Award
2002
Heidi Duckler Dance
Winner – Lester Horton Award for Outstanding Company Performance
Nominee – Lester Horton Award 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.)
Winner – Back Stage West Landmark Award
2001
Heidi Duckler Dance
Winner – 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
Nominee – Lester Horton Award for Sustained Achievement
2000
Heidi Duckler
Winner – 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 – Cultural Affairs Department, City of Los Angeles
Member – Cultural Planning/Arts for L.A.
Member – Dance/USA
1998
Heidi Duckler Dance
Winner – 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
Nominee – Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Set Design, Lighting Design, and Sustained Achievement for the production of Most Wanted
Heidi Duckler
Peer Panelist – Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission
Selected participant – On Site Performance Network, Dancing in the Streets
Editor – Dance Zine
Vice President – Board of Directors of the Dance Resource Center of Los Angeles, CA
1997
Heidi Duckler
Member – California Plaza Task Force, Los Angeles, CA
Speaker – Interdisciplinary Performance at California Institute of the Arts