After the creation of the solo Hobokendans (1997), he founded his company ZOO (based on the name of a book used by the group as study material) with fellow dancers Mark Lorimer, Sarah Ludi, Mat Voorter and Samantha van Wissen.
The work of Hauert first developed from research on movement, with a particular interest in improvisation-based processes exploring the tension between freedom and constraint, individuals and the group, order and disorder, and form and formlessness.
In 2012, he was invited by IRCAM in Paris to lead a project on the relationship between improvised dance and electronic musical composition in the context of the festival-academy ManiFeste.
In 2010, the Belgian director Thierry De Mey created a film co-produced by European cultural television channel Arte, based on the ZOO's work Accords.
In 2012 he started participating in Motion Bank, a project initiated by The William Forsythe Company and Ohio State University.