About

Hadar Ahuvia

Hadar Ahuvia (she/her) is a cross-disciplinary artist, ritual leader and Jewish educator. Hadar’s work centers the body in explorations of Jewish political and cultural lineages. Her essay “Joy Vey” on choreographing a diasporic identity beyond Zionism is featured in the Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance. Ahuvia was raised as a secular Zionist Israeli Jew and has come to study traditional texts and melodies as a way of healing intergenerational ruptures. Her years long research and deconstruction of Zionist folk dance have culminated in a series of performances tracing how Israeli settler-colonial identity is choreographed and transmitted. She is currently studying Eastern European cantorial and vernacular music and the texts of the Rabbinic tradition as a student at Hebrew College and working on nefesh, a new dance work that melds these lines of research.

Ahuvia was named a Dance Magazine “25 to Watch in 2019”, and her work “Everything you have is yours?” earned her a 2018 Bessie nomination for Outstanding "Breakout" Choreographer. Ahuvia has been an artists in residence at DTW/NYLA (2012 Fresh Tracks Artist) Movement Research (2015 AIR), the 14th St. Y (2016 LABA Fellow), Art Stations Foundation through MR’s GPS program, CUNY Dance Initiative at the College of Staten Island (2017), EtM Choreographer + Composer Residency at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL), Whitman College, Mana Contemporary, Yaddo, and Baryshnikov Arts Center. Her work has received support from the Brooklyn Arts Council, New Music USA, and a New Jewish Culture Fellowship, and Mass Cultural Council. It has been presented at DTW/NYLA, the 14th St Y, Art Stations Foundations (Poland), the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Tmuna Theater, The James Gallery, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, and La Mama.

Ahuvia trained at the Orlando Ballet Theater, Lines Ballet, The San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and studied dance and religion at Sarah Lawrence College. Ahuvia is grateful to have worked with artists Sara Rudner, Jill Sigman, Donna Uchizono, Molly Poerstel, Anna Sperber, Jon Kinzel, Stuart Shugg, Kathy Westwater,, Tatyana Tenenbaum, the Trisha Brown Dance Company and Lucinda Childs Dance. Ahuvia has developed collaborative relationships with Jaffa based artists Shira Eviatar and with Tatyana Tenenbaum (NYC/Lenapehoking). She is grateful to performs with Reggie Wilson/ Fist and Heel Performance Group.

Ahuvia has lectured and lead workshops sharing her research at the Association of Jewish Studies, Arizona State University, Queens College, City College, Whitman College, and Yale University. She leads prayer, life cycle rituals, and hosts gatherings that center the power of collective song and movement.