About
Erika Batdorf is an international artist who runs a performing artist retreat centre north of Toronto and has been performing, directing and creating award-winning performance work for over 30 years shared in 14 countries. Batdorf works in a number of mediums, mostly performance. Though lately she has been developing large site-specific immersive projects, she is returning to her core practice of solo performance. She also created the performance training technique called The Batdorf Technique (TBT).
Erika Batdorf has shared her work at venues such as The Alvin Ailey City Theatre, The Troy Museum and the Bergama Theatre Festival in Turkey, LitLive and Prthvi Theatre in Mumbai, Venice Bienalle, an official collateral event, Italy, Salihara International Theatre Festival, Indonesia, Luminato in Toronto, the 7th International Women’s Playwriting Festival, Indonesia, The Smithsonian Institute, Harvard University, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco…. She has received 5 Dora Nominations, (Toronto’s Tony’s), one jury prize at Summerworks and two productions she directed made top 10 of the year in Toronto’s NOW magazine.
Recently she performed her new performance art piece in development, Banished for CAMINO’s, Aluna Theatre’s new works festival at Factory Theatre and an excerpt from her solo Poetic License at Alvin Ailey City Theatre in November in NYC. Before that she spent time over three years in Turkey with Gulce Oral working on their site-specific immersive show Old Village New Dream for the Bergama Theatre Festival Aug 2024. She teaches at York University and ran the graduate theatre MFA program there for 9 years.
Batdorf runs a new retreat in Honeywood, Ontario - The Honeywood Schoolhouse Artist Retreat, that will launch in spring 2026. She still teaches at York University in Toronto where she received the Faculty of Fine Arts Dean’s Senior Teaching Award (2010) and in 1996 was voted Most Outstanding Faculty at The Boston Conservatory where she taught for 12 years. She has been and continues to be a guest teacher internationally and is listed in the Who’s Who of American Teachers. She ran The Batdorf School for Movement Theatre in Boston for several years.
Batdorf in the media
The Red Horse Is Leaving
J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and MailI was really impressed by Erika Batdorf's rooted, realistic performance… unique and unsensational.
Life with more cowbella thoughtful, moving journey... Cerebral and visceral at the same time... profoundly moving, thought-provoking.
Burnish
The Santa Barbara IndependentMystical and precise, “Burnish” managed to elicit a remarkably wide range of thoughts and emotions…
Miki Garcia, Executive Director, Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary ArtBurnish “was magical and intimate and brought up some wonderful feelings- I loved it!”
Poetic License
Kate Pedersen, NOW Magazine / NNNNLicense to Thrill… hilarious and thoughtful… emotionally compelling, visually elegant… the very best thing about Poetic License is Batdorf’s humour… watching Batdorf was the highlight of my week, possibly my month.
Indah Lestari, Bangkok Post AsiaViewsA brilliant play is performed by its multitalented writer. Poetic License played brilliantly by Erika Batdorf… [this] interactive process somehow binds the actor and the spectators together… It is women’s experience on stage that can ignite a change in you.
A few older ones…
Karen Campbell, The Boston Herald…striking physicality. She doesn't so much create characters as embody their every thought… Batdorf is a natural and authoritative dancer and choreographer.
Meghan Harrison, EYE WeeklyMoving effortlessly from dry comedy to a gorgeous movement piece… warm-hearted, well-crafted…. A stunning and absorbing performance in its entirety…
Jane Hogan, Backstage, NYCBatdorf is extremely skilled… both intense and subtle… enigmatic yet accessible.
Susan Walker, Toronto StarShe’s poetry in motion. Batdorf is one of a kind…an electric presence even off-stage… she is unforgettable.