Rachel Slater is a dance artist, filmmaker, educator, and curator based in Portland. She serves as Director of Dance Film for BODYART’s IDFNOLA and as co-Artistic Director of Muddy Feet Contemporary Dance alongside Suzanne Chi. She is a 2025 Spark Award recipient from the Miller Foundation.

Working across live performance and screendance, Slater creates intimate interdisciplinary works rooted in lived experience and location-responsive storytelling. Her practice explores memory, grief, and human connection. Her award-winning dance films have screened at more than 45 festivals across 25 countries.

As a performer and choreographer, her work has been presented nationally and internationally at venues and festivals including TEDxPortland, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Ten Tiny Dances, and the MOVE MOVE MOVE Festival. 

Slater’s teaching and mentorship work spans universities, conservatories, public schools, and community-based programs, including at Tulane University, Reed College, Pacific University, and the National High School Dance Festival. Her creative research has been supported through residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Hambidge Center, New Expressive Works, Sou’wester, and the Portland Grief House. She is currently a From the Ground Up Resident.

Rachel believes that, at its best, artmaking is a radical, humanist act that uses empathy to support and amplify stories.