Originally from Central Nebraska, Amber Hongsermeier is a neurodivergent and interdisciplinary movement artist, choreographer, dance researcher, educator, and dance filmmaker. She received her BA in Dance with a history minor from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where she was awarded the Porter Award for Creativity in Dance. She earned her MFA in Dance from Rutgers University with her thesis focused on finding embodiment by exploring archetypes in astrology and tarot. Additionally, she completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training with Lila Flow Yoga.

 

Her varied educational and performance background consists of commercial (theatrical jazz and tap), concert (ballet, contemporary, and modern), and vernacular dance forms (hip hop and various social dance styles), which gives a nuanced understanding of aesthetics and the high-brow and low-brow narratives built around these forms. She has performed works by Kayvon Pourazar, Blanca Huertas-Agnew, Jody Sperling, Pavel Zustiak, and Jessica Bostock. Her work for stage and film has been shown in Nebraska, Iowa, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Japan. Often, her creative research bridges eclectic personal interest in esoteric studies and grounds them through a more scholarly vein by using frameworks from cultural anthropology, Jungian psychology, religious studies, and somatics to examine Western society, especially concerning the body, spirituality, and movement. She regularly attends dance conferences, giving presentations or experimental workshops on somatics and neurodiversity-affirming practices for dance education and the choreographic process.

 

Currently, she resides in South Jersey/Philadelphia (soon to be Spokane, WA), where she works as a full-time dance professional and part-time multi-disciplined creatrix with emphasis on ritual craft items and tarot readings.