Choreography Reel

Enjoy clips of my choreography!

Excerpts from MFA Thesis, t u n i n g, 2020. 0.00
Quartet exploring collaboration and being together in different states with a set of giant wind chimes!

Excerpts from s k i n, 2019. 3:20
Solo exploring various identities and costumes, transformation, and what goes seen and unseen.

Excerpts from The Shell and the Soft Inside, 2019. 6:09
Quarter exploring air, breath, voice, vulnerability, and the hearts, lungs, and arms as wings.

Excerpts from aerial bungee harness peice, Cat Lady, 2016. 7:37
Solo-into-duet~ a dreamlike Cat Goddess dances with a dreamer.

Excerpts from Blindfolded Duet, 2016 9:20
A duet where the dancers navigate each other and the space blindfolded with the audience’s help and other strategies of orientation.

Excerpts from Fancy Ponies, 2015 11:09
Comedic, evening-length dance-theater piece playing with sexuality and gender. Featuring ponies and cowboys!

Zero Gravity Dance

Part of the groundwork for my MFA Thesis at Smith College was an in-depth study of movement and perception in weightless (zero gravity) environments that I have been undertaking since early 2019 with my partner, Adam Dipert.  We ask questions like: How does gravity affect our language and concepts? What can we learn about being human by experiencing weightlessness? How does our evolutionary history as water-dwellers and our personal history in the womb prepare us for weightlessness?  How can we train in gravity for movement out of gravity? Adam and I invited French zero-gravity dancer and choreographer Kitsou Dubois to Smith for a workshop and interviews in March of 2019. Afterwards, we co-wrote an article about her training methods for Contact Quarterly titled “Orienting Beyond Gravity: Training with Kitsou Dubois” (2020)—the only publication on Dubois’ work or zero gravity dance in the English language.  In dialogue with Dubois’ ideas, we developed and practiced our own training methods with a small group of collaborators through four weeks of intensive rehearsal over the summer. In November 2019, I went on my first zero gravity flight and was able to put our methods to the test!

Dance Film~ Trio with Camera

Trio with Camera

Direction and Editing by Toni Craige
Dancing and Filming by Toni Craige, Nikki Lee, and Madison Palffy

This 6 minute piece is cut from a 45 minute continuous improvisation in the historic Crew House at Smith College. The dancers move with the camera, participating, witnessing, and composing all at once. The viewer is invited into the spherical movement, disorientation and intimacy of the experience.