Ellen Smith Ahern

Ellen Smith Ahern is a dance artist and community organizer/MSW living with her family on Abenaki lands in N’Dakinna/New Hampshire. As a 2023 Creative Community Fellow with National Art Strategies and 2024 Artist in Residence with the National Park Service, her dances explore the intersection of movement, storytelling and nature, creating interdisciplinary performance projects that include a wider array of people than might otherwise feel welcomed into traditional dance spaces. With generous support from many institutions and individuals, Ellen performs and teaches throughout the US and internationally in deep collaboration with fellow artists and community members.  She shares her work through film, installation and live performance in diverse venues, from the National Gallery of Art and the Ionion Center of Kefalonia to a landfill in Georgia and grange halls in rural New England.