About Me

I am a movement artist working primarily with subjects of the body based in NYC. I am interested in nourishing the practice of translation through interdisciplinary methods. My work seeks to explore resonance, discord, decay and healing. Rooted in nature, the body escapes its skin shell and reinvents itself dispelled of trauma, an unearthly creature insect. Through ritual, disorientation, and unlearning, my creations emerge. As a choreographer, I draw upon butoh, contemporary floorwork, Capoeira, and release technique. I develop the nuance of the movement work through accessing visual art, words, and fleeting images.

In 2024, I established a project-based dance collective, SHADOWSWELL. On January 31, 2025, SHADOWSWELL produced an evening of interdisciplinary dance works featuring Verbal Animal including the premiere of "Pariahs of the Void". My works have been presented as a part of Queer Butoh Festival at The Brick Theater, WADE Dance Festival, Emerging Artists Festival, “The Body as Archive” at Smush Gallery, and Agropoli Dance Festival in Italy. In April 2026, my collaboration with Oscar-Suh Rodriguez "CHIMAERA" will premiere it's eponymous debut at Green Lung Studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I've been granted artist residencies at Homeport Art House (Maine), Peaked Hill Trust (Provincetown, MA), and Arts, Letters, and Numbers (Averill Park, NY).

I hold an MA in Dance Education from NYU: Steinhardt, with an emphasis on Teaching Dance in the Professions. As an educator and faciliator, I teach open butoh/contact improvisation classes in New York City and work with Brooklyn Arts Council in their youth and SU-CASA programming. I am on faculty at Westchester Community College and Iona University. I have presented my scholarship at several conferences including: 2023 National Dance Education Organization Conference in Denver, 2024 International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association/NDEO Conference, 2025 NYU:Steinhardt/Joyce Theater Symposium in New York and 2025 National Dance Education Conference in Detroit, Michigan. As a performer, I've danced in the works of many artists including Javier Padilla, Doug Varone, Sean Curran, Adam Barruch, and Ellen Sickenberger.

eilishadonnahenderson@gmail.com

Photo by Ava Pellor