photo by Claudia Celestino
Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie (Artistic Director/Choreographer/Dancer) is a New York City based b-girl, performer and choreographer and a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance. Asherie has received numerous awards to support her work including Dance Magazine's Inaugural Harkness Promise Award, a Jacob's Pillow Fellowship at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, and a National Dance Project Award. In 2019 she was the recipient of a NYFA Fellowship and a New York City Center Choreography Fellowship. Asherie is currently a 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow.
Her new work UnderScored, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim, was awarded a 2019 Creation and Development Award from the National Performance Network. This multi-faceted project includes archiving the oral histories of elders from New York City's underground dance community as well as an evening length documentary-theater work, will premiere in 2022. Asherie earned her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University in Italian and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee where she researched the vernacular jazz dance roots of contemporary street and club dances.
Asherie is honored to have been mentored by Richard Santiago (aka Break Easy) and to have worked and collaborated with Buddha Stretch, Bill Irwin, Michelle Dorrance, Doug Elkins, Gus Solomons Jr and Rennie Harris. Asherie is a co-founding member of the all-female house dance collective MAWU and is forever grateful to NYC’s underground dance community for inspiring her to pursue a life as an artist. For more information please check out www.ephratasheriedance.com or IG: @ephratasheriedance