Artistic Director

Heather Stewart (she/they) is a contemporary choreographer, writer, and the founder/director of little house dance. She works in the United States, Canada, and Europe. After several years of working as an independent artist Heather established little house dance in order to formalize her collaborative relationships with other dancers, musicians, visual artists, and writers.

Born in Canada, Heather grew up across the South Pacific where she lived in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. After attending Etobicoke School for the Arts in Ontario, Canada and later graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School (MA Dance Studies, choreography focus) she went on to live and work in Montreal, London, Boston and Portland (ME).,

Heather has been making original work for live performance since 2012. Her choreographic process has been fostered by: Portland Ovations,Global Arts Live,The Boston Center for the Arts, New Movement Collaborative, Espace Marie Chouinard, The Place, Centre de Création O Vertigo (CCOV), Earthdance, Tufts University, Maine Mechanics Hall, Casco Bay Movers, The Boston Conservatory at Berkeley, Art Factory Malakta, and Tanzzentrale der region Nürnberg. She has presented internationally at several performing arts festivals including The Vancouver International Dance Festival, State of Play, Conduit Dance+, The Expanse Festival, The Saint John Contemporary Dance Festival, Resolutions!, Beta Publica, and HubWeek Boston.

Over the past decade, she has garnered recognition and financial support from The Foundation for Contemporary Art, SPACE Gallery, The Maine Arts Commission,The New England Foundation for the Arts, The Boston Foundation, The Canada Council for the Arts, and The Somerville Arts Council. In 2023 her work, Noisefloor, was selected as a finalist for a National Dance Project Production Grant. In 2015 her work was shortlisted for the Deustche Bank Award for Creative Enterprises. 

Heather’s dances have been described as “openhearted and palpab[ly] vulnerable” (Camille Howard), “personal, sensitive narratives” (Emilyn Claid)  characterized by “exacting, challenging, and physically demanding choreography” (David Henry). She has been recognized for her complex dance/sound intersections. For seven years, Heather developed her work in collaboration with the late Marc Bartissol aka dull. Together they worked from a shared vision of performance as a place of refuge from the outside world. Their ongoing partnership was defined by a rigorous, generous, and reciprocal collaboration in which the music and choreography were given equal space and importance. Formerly a Montreal-based DJ named little house, Marc’s name remains imprinted on Heather’s company in remembrance of his lasting contributions to the work.