Performing with Lida Winfield, Joseph Hall, Maree ReMalia and Laurel Jenkins in "Imaginary" (2019) (image credit: Jonathon Hsu)-
Ellen singing and swinging lanterns with Kate Elias and Josina Guess (Vulture Sister Song) (image credit: Julia Barstow)
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Touring in Brno, Czech Republic, with Lida Winfield, Pauline Jennings and Double Vision (image credit: Marek Prochazka)
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Clear Creek (2019), a dance film created in collaboration with Kate Elias, Tori Lawrence and members of a rural Wyoming community
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Dialogue 1 (2024), an improvisational gathering instigated by Rachel Bernsen (image credit: Rachel Bernsen + Junction Arts & Media)
Ellen Smith Ahern (she/her) is a dance artist and social worker/community organizer living with her family on Abenaki lands in N’Dakinna/New Hampshire. As a 2023 Creative Community Fellow with National Art Strategies and a 2024 Artist in Residence with the National Parks Service at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park, Ellen creates performance projects that include a wider array of people than might otherwise feel welcomed into traditional dance spaces. She has performed and taught throughout Mexico, Cuba, Qatar, Canada, Europe and the US, collaborating with many artists, including Jane Comfort & Company, Lida Winfield, Kate Elias, Rachel Bernsen, Hannah Dennison, Pauline Jennings, Polly Motley, Rebecca Pappas, El Circo Contemporaneo, Amy Chavasse, David Appel and Tiffany Rhynard’s Big APE. With generous support from many institutions and community members, she shares her work through film, installation and live performance in many diverse venues, from the National Gallery of Art, Dance on Camera Festival/Film at Lincoln Center, Middlefield Community Center and Bates Dance Festival, to AVA Gallery, Dixon Place, Artistree Community Arts Center, FlynnSpace, Ionion Center of Kefalonia and the Rococo Theatre in Prague.