I am a queer dancer, artist, and embodied learning, ritual, and celebration facilitator living on unceded Mohican, Mohawk, and Haudenosaunee lands, colonially known as the Hudson Valley, New York. I spend time looking for and co-creating bridges through pedagogy, performance, language, healing, celebration, and transformation. I create performances, organize parades and parties, design and lead workshops, offer one-on-one counseling & sex and gender expansion work, write, and make videos, gifts, and environments for (re)enchantment. I see my work—which is always collaborative—as a conduit for knowing/unknowing what is here and now, for remembering and practicing intimacy at many proximities.
I have worked internationally as a teacher and facilitator, performer, and artist. I completed an MFA in Dance from UCLA in 2008 and a practice-based PhD in Art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2022. My dissertation focused on queer friendship, the possibility of psychic communication, and re-enchantment and recovery from the delusion of separateness. I have a background in Euro-American contemporary dance, somatic practices, and performance art, Japanese experimental dance practices, Black & queer social dance, and Buddhist thought and practice. I have been meditating and learning Buddhist philosophy since 1998, having studied most extensively in Thai Forest and Burmese lineages. I practiced yoga for about twenty years and taught yoga for a decade, having studied most extensively with Eric Schiffman, Elena Brower, Integral Yoga, and Debra Bluth. I am trained in the Internal Family Systems method and am inspired by the approach and its potential to support humans in personal and collective liberation. I completed my level 1 IFS training in 2015 and received one-on-one counseling from IFS synthesizer Richard Schwartz for over 15 years, a profound gift and the ultimate portal for my understanding of and intimacy with the model. I am also inspired by and trained in Barbara Carrellas’ Urban Tantra work and Bondassage and have studied DREAMWORK with Mala Kline.
I was based in Troy, NY for almost a decade and am indebted to the communities there with whom I practiced coalition building; being messy, joyful, and resistant together and separate with and through our bodies, with and through parties, protests, potlucks, city council meetings, dance class, the community bike shop, and more. I am still a co-organizer, with Angela Beallor and Elizabeth Press, of FlagsSs Day in Troy, which entwines celebration and challenge, protest with party, and dissent with a dedication to joy, and organizes parades, rituals, and flag-making workshops. I worked with Troy Bike Rescue for five years focused on youth advocacy and coalition building with other grass roots/hyper-local orgs. I was also part of the team that started Troy’s DIY safer space queer dance party, performance, and community fundraiser event, Polly, in 2014.
Some of my closest collaborators and peer teachers are the artists, healers, and misfits Angela Beallor, Elizabeth Press, Sondra Loring, Erica Dawn Lyle, Lea Kieffer, Tomislav Feller, Eli Nixon, Dori Midnight, Nikola Knežević, Senem Pirler, margit galanter, Erin Sickler, Lailye Weidman, Jason Martin, Ellen Foster, Jack Magai, taisha paggett, Julia Handschuh, Asher Woodworth, and Ethan Keirmaier. I am indebted to these comrades and to my teachers Barbara Carrellas, Deborah Hay, Debra Bluth, Ashon Crawley, Jennifer Monson, Simone Forti, d. Sabela grimes, Mala Kline, Richard Schwartz, Thanissara and Kittisaro, and Pascal Auclair, and to teachers and influences I have never met in person including Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Bayo Akomolafe, Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, Min Tanaka, Paul Preciado, Pauline Oliveros, Silvia Federici, Karen Barad, and many others.
Instagram @hansihaha
Email hjvanderkolk (at) gmail (dot) com