Dorchel Haqq was raised in Harlem and began her journey embodying history at LaRocque Bey School of Dance Theatre and the Dance Theater of Harlem. Her interest in the body as a political artifact blossomed at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and deepened while studying at the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, SUNY. While at Purchase, she studied abroad at the Korea National School of Arts and at B12 in Berlin. She is continuously cultivating her movement language by exploring the reflections of fantasy while abstracting the echoes of transgenerational trauma through her body of culture. Film, sound exploration, and object investigation have added dimensions to her practice of active archiving. These organizations have fed her practice: Springboard Danse and the Springboard Danse curated Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation Founder’s Residency, Gallim Moving Artist(inaugural resident), Leimay Incubator, Center for Performance Research, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Triskelion Arts, Beyond the Black Box, Black Aesthetics Judson Commons, Arts On Site, Movement Research, City Artist Corps Grants, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Dorchel has danced in works by Loni Landon, Kayla Farrish, and Kyle Abraham and has performed in Sleep No More, Shanghai and Emursive’s Life and Trust. During the summer of a global pandemic, she presented ‘tenderheaded’ at the Battery Dance Festival and co-organized a BLM protest with Jon Batiste. In the Fall of 2020, she became an adjunct lecturer and was commissioned by the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, SUNY, to create BLACKDIAMOND. In November 2023, she performed as Stefanie Batten Bland’s choreographic assistant and dancer for Etudes by Carl Hancock Rux/Mabou Mines. In 2025, she started a dance theatre company and is a 2025 Movement Research Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellow, mentored by Nora Chipaumire.