Ephra Hardy is currently a Senior at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she is double majoring in Dance and Management & Entrepreneurship with a concentration in Dance Administration. In addition to her studies, she works for HWS as the Dance and Movement Studies student administrative assistant, as an O’Laughlin Ambassador for Admissions, and as the Community Engagement House Manager. She also works for SPCAA as their Non-Profit Development Intern and is thrilled to be joining their faculty as a dance teacher.
Ephra was raised in Durham, North Carolina, began dancing at 5 years old and hasn’t stopped since. She began training at Barriskill Dance Theatre School under the direction of Elliot Pack and continued under Mari O’Donnell, focusing on classical ballet technique. Her training diversified through summer intensives at American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Asia Pacific Dance Festival, and study abroad in Bali, Indonesia.
Currently, she has received significant training in Ballet, Pointe, Jazz, HipHop, Contemporary, Improvisation/Composition, African Diasporic dances, and Modern dance techniques including Cunningham, Limón, Horton, and Bartenieff Fundamentals. In addition, her dance studies have also exposed her to Hula, Kathak, Traditional Rotuman (Fijian) dances, and Balinese dances. She also holds a deep appreciation for music and has taken classical voice lessons for many years, now continued under SPCAA’s own Wendra Trowbridge.
She began teaching in 2020 at Barriskill Dance Theatre School and has continued to develop her skills throughout college as a teaching assistant for multiple college classes at HWS, substitute teaching at SPCAA, and her choreographic endeavors. Her hope is to teach dance in a way that encourages her students to move through the rest of the world with more creativity, confidence, and resilience. She strives to continue dancing, learning, teaching, and advocating for the arts during the entirety of her career and beyond.
