Credited as a pioneer of Indian and Israeli dance in the United States,[1] her choreography reflected both aspects and styles of ethnic and folk culture and her own deeply-held spiritual beliefs.

[1] Spira's family was forced to leave Jerusalem due to a misstatement by one of their relatives working in the diplomatic service.

[3] According to Long, Spira viewed at least one performance of the Denishawn Dancers at Lewisohn Stadium before 1931,[5] and was particularly impressed with Ted Shawn, who was known for his Whirling Dervish.

[3] After her marriage in 1933, Spira's husband, Milton Epstein, encouraged her to familiarize herself with New York's theatre and dance culture.

[3] Spira Epstein began studying dance under Ruth St. Denis and Jack Cole, who both incorporated eastern ideas in their works.

[5] She went on to perform at "Carnegie Hall, the Ziegfeld Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, many Broadway theaters, every major dance series in New York, the Habibi nightclub and Jacob's Pillow in New England".

[3] Hadassah's dances reflected many aspects and styles of ethnic and folk culture, including Hindu, Indian, Indonesian, Israeli, Balinese, and Korean.

[3] At the same time, her choreography expressed her deeply held spiritual beliefs, and what she perceived as a universal desire to connect to God.

[3][9] She specifically incorporated movements and gestures that were common to a variety of cultures to convey "a spiritual longing to connect with and honor the Source".

[4] For example, her performance of the hora, set to vocals of a cantorial by Cantor Leibele Waldman, saw her garbed in "a stylized version of the four-cornered prayer shawl with fringes (zizit) at each corner".

[6] However, one night after she had performed "Shuvi Nafshi", her parents visited her backstage and she felt they understood her need to express her spiritual beliefs through dance.

[3] Hadassah's signature dance was "Shuvi Nafshi" ("Return O My Soul"), a composition based on a verse in Psalm 116.

[7] Hadassah explained the meaning of the psalm as follows: "Man is not alone when he is ecstatically aware that his soul, albeit an infinitesimal spark, is part and parcel of the Universal Flame".

[3] Walter Terry of the New York Herald Tribune described "Shuvi Nafshi" as "a dance of Biblical power in its projection of ecstatic reverence for the divine...powerful and beautiful, [it] is not only of interest because of its emotional communications but also because of its absorbing fusion of modern dance’s expressional qualities with oriental movement idioms".

[2] In 1995, Milton Epstein donated her papers from 1938 to 1988 to the Jerome Robbins Dance Collection at the New York Public Library.