Education
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA
(Expected graduation of May 2026) 2023 - 2026 MFA Choreography, Department of Dance
Cornish College of the Arts
Seattle, WA
2006 - 2009 BFA Studio Art, Department of Art, Magna Cum Laude, GPA 3.78
River North Dance Chicago
1997 Apprenticeship
Certifications
2021 Stateline Reiki, Reiki Level 1 & 2
2019 Om My Yoga, 200 hour Yoga Teacher Certification
Choreography
University of Iowa
2025
Flowering Body
Choreography created in collaboration with five undergraduate dancers. Flowering Body explores the gradient tension between choreography and improvisation. Understanding the bodymind as a composition, we employ improvisational methods of recomposition, such as Poetic Imagery Seeding, Tuning Scores, Pentamodes, and Gradients to unfold an embodied awareness and corporeal imagination. Sound score created by Mikey Rioux. Premiered at Space Place Theater.
2024
Mystic Sister
Choreography created in collaboration with seven undergraduate and graduate dancers. Mystic Sister explores individual and collective grief, the Divine Feminine, and performance as ritual. Sculptural set pieces created by Mikey Rioux. Sound score created by Mikey Rioux and Justin Jones. Premiered at Space Place Theater.
ACDA 2025 Gala, official selection
Selected as second alternate for ACDA National Conference 2025.
“Seamless interweaving allows this work to shift and shimmer with care and intimacy. Billowing gestures transform time in a ritual of resolute connection.” -ACDA 2025 adjudicator remarks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ueQyYJzhY
Wolf
A re-creation of the solo, Portrait of The Wolf, as a dance film. Filmed on location around Lake Superior, and in a green screen studio. A solo for four, a layered multiplicity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oO41XnBfG4
Libation Suite
A multimedia interpretation of the poem Libation Suite by Lisa Allen-Agostini. Created in collaboration with the artist Lisa Allen-Agostini for the annual Iowa Writers Program Residency. Video projections and sound score created by Mikey Rioux. Premiered at Space Place Theater.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NwqQOsaUtg
2023
Riot of Spring
A multimedia dance theater work very loosely inspired by the classic ballet, Rite Of Spring. Created in collaboration with seven undergraduate dancers, this work explores Poetic Imagery Seeding as a choreographic tool, and as performative improvisation. Video Projections created by Mikey Rioux. Premiered at Space Place Theater.
Portrait of The Wolf
A solo Dance Theater work exploring themes of domesticity/wildness, gender queerness, nonduality, and cultural and self-imposed prisons. Sound score created by Mikey Rioux. Premiered at Space Place Theater.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ha4IMc590g
The Sho
2013
Filthy/Mockingbird
Filthy/Mockingbird is a chance-based collage of sound, video, and dance. We were interested in examining the sense making process and challenging assumptions and expectations of the performance making process.
Concept and Direction: Mikey Rioux
Collaborating Artists: Ben Law (dance), Kaitlin Webster (dance), Danielle Hammer (dance), John Holt (set design, construction), Ian Huddleston (sound), John Backstrom (video), Dan Preble (lighting). Premiered at Links Hall, Chicago, IL
“...filthy/mockingbird, a work whose demands, both physical and mental, were massive...”
Zachary Whittenburg, Dance Magazine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V7-9xYiGZk
Darkroom
A dance film created from the raw footage filmed by John Backstrom for his live manipulation during the performances of Filthy/Mockingbird.
https://vimeo.com/101551453?share=copy
2010
Goodbye, You’re Forgiven, I’m Pretending To Be You
A dance film and a solo for proscenium stage. The title refers to the three different improvisational scores that were used to create the material for the solo. Every rehearsal was treated as a performance of these scores, out in public, and filmed. Premiered at The Northwest Film Forum.
https://vimeo.com/94872925/0c2e8cdbcb?share=copy
Wild Fruit Study No. 01
A bright, disorienting, nonsensical mess of a duet. Created from translating, and editing, and retranslating movement phrases across bodies. Sound score created by Mikey Rioux and Misha Kaschock. Premiered at the Chop Shop Festival.
https://vimeo.com/12271491/af80572e74?share=copy
Dance No. 01
A structured improvisational duet created for Ten Tiny Dances, presented by PICA’s TBA Festival.
“I blame creatives like [Mikey] Rioux, the man who made #8 of Ten Tiny Dances, for making it look too easy to pop off with the perfect irreverent comment and engage a whole audience. It's easy for creatives like Rioux, but that's a function of studied mental agility and years of experience. Their genius enables their spontaneity-not vice versa.” - Anne Adams, Portland Monthly
“Some people can get away with spontaneity and irreverence. [Mikey] Rioux is one of those few.” - Anne Adams, Portland Monthly
2008
In Progress
A 40-minute improvisational solo within an immersive multimedia sculptural environment. An experiment in collage as a method of perception and engagement with the world. Featuring live musical improvisation by Misha Kaschock and Luke Allen. Video and sculptural environment by Mikey Rioux. Premiered at Velocity Dance Center, Seattle, WA
Impetus Dance Theater
2005
The Dead Flowers of Myself
A farewell love letter to Chicago and innocence.
2004
The End of August
A high energy acrobatic quartet set to the music of Led Zeppelin.
2003
Enclave
A duet created for the Dance Chicago Festival, Dance Slam program. A temporally descending battle that explodes into chaos and fizzles to nothing. Created in collaboration with Christopher Tierney.
2002
Since Feeling is First
A multimedia dance theater work inspired by the poem, Since Feeling is First, by ee cummings. Sound score, set design, and mural by Mikey Rioux. Premiered at Ruth Page Center for The Arts. Chicago, IL
2001
Mach Schau
A crowd-pleasing vignette driven group dance set to the music of The Beatles. Premiered at Steele Beam Theater.
The University of Arizona
1999
Melancholy Pleasure
Created in collaboration with Claire Hancock. A duet portraying the disastrous orbiting of an ill-fated marriage. Performed to live singing from the iconic Ben Vereen.
Other
2022
Late Bloom
A dance film created in collaboration with James Morrow exploring Nature as a metaphor for queerness and finding one's queerness late in life.
2021
This Empty House
A dance film documenting quarantine and divorce.
3 Official Selections
March, 23, 2023- NYBA Dance Film Fest, New York, NY
April 14, 2023- LGBT+ Film Festival Poland. Warszawa, Poland
February 25, 2023- Greensboro Dance Film Festival. Greensboro, NC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38bYdYSZNCo
2016
Radio Silence
Harrisburg Dance Festival, Harrisburg, PA
https://vimeo.com/170519346?share=copy
2014
Hair
American Theater Co., Chicago
Choreographer for ATC’s production of Hair, directed by PJ Paparelli.
The Place of The End Not Imagined
Jacksonville Dance Theater, Jacksonville, FL
“The Place of The End Not Imagined… felt as if they occupy the spot in the world once held by sacred mysteries enacted with solemn ritual to ensure the continuity of the universe...Watching it gave rise to the thought that if music is universal, and visual art and life intersect with life, then is dance not that sacred thing that can transmute into quiet or raucous spaces/stories and be made luminous flesh…” -Madeline Peck Wagner, Folio Weekly
https://vimeo.com/259928853?share=copy
2013
Aftertaste
The Inconvenience, Chicago
In collaboration with Tuesday Night Dinner. Aftertaste is an evening of dance inspired by food, memory, community: and food inspired by that dance.
Your Move
Abraham Werewolf, Chicago
Official selection for the 2013 Chicago Fringe Festival.
https://abrahamwerewolf.com/your-move
2012
Graveyard Study No. 02
University Of Chicago Dancers
2011
Graveyard Study No. 01
Chicago Dance Crash
The Sacred And The Secular
James Morrow / The Movement
2008
Alone, In a Room, Together
Cornish Dance Theater, Cornish College of The Arts, Seattle, WA
https://vimeo.com/5773310/a24e03d49d?share=copy
2007
Long Time Sleeping
Lehua Dance Theater, Seattle, WA
https://vimeo.com/5766086/63c88a5a6c?share=copy
2006
Emigration Study No. 01, Instruments of Movement, Chicago
A powerful duet for two men whose alternating near stasis and vigorous engagement suggest wrestling's intimate antagonism.
2004
Punk You Very Much
Giordano's Jazz Dance Chicago
A fun, youthful, tongue-in-cheek group dance.
“It’s full of wriggling and attitude and breathtaking leaps and catches.” -Laura Molzahn, Chicago Reader
“[Mikey Rioux] displays a gift for theatrically composed interplay...Rioux has an impressive choreographic vision.” - Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune
Echo
Mordine & Co. Dance Theater
Echo is inspired by the brash and unapologetic force of early graffiti artists and their influence on Pop Art. The dance records the rapture and immediate logic of a child.
Teaching
The University of Iowa Iowa City, IA
2024 - 2026 Graduate Student TA (100% in charge of planning and teaching classes)
Fall24 DANC:1030 Beginning Ballet
Fall24 DANC:1130 Continuing Ballet
Spr25 DANC:1070 Yoga
Spr25 DANC:2020 Intermediate Jazz
Fall25 DANC:1030 Beginning Ballet
Fall25 DANC:2020 Intermediate Jazz
The University of Iowa Youth Ballet Iowa City, IA
2023 - 2024 Faculty
Spr23 Adult Beginning Modern
Fall24 Ballet 4/5
Fall24 Modern 4/5
Spr25 Ballet 4/5
Spr25 Modern 4/5
Fall25 Conditioning / Special Topics 5
Fall25 Modern 5
Fall25 Modern 3A/3B/4
Batavia Academy of Dance Batavia, IL
2022 - 2025 Faculty
Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary
Visceral Dance Center Chicago, IL
2021 / 2011 - 2014 Faculty
Contemporary Dance
The Studio Enola, PA
2015 - 2020 Faculty
Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Choreography
Dickinson College Carlisle, PA
2019 Master Class
Improvisation
2017 Master Class
Improvisation
University of Wisconsin- Madison
2018 Master Class
Contemporary dance
2011 Master Class
Contemporary Dance
CAPE Chicago, IL
2011 - 2014 Faculty
Arts integrative lesson planning and teaching within the Chicago Public School system.
Northern Illinois University Dekalb, IL
2012 Master Class
Contemporary Dance
Florida State College Jacksonville, FL
2011 Master Class
Contemporary Dance
Episcopal High School Jacksonville, FL
2011 Teaching and Choreographic Residency
Contemporary Dance
University of Chicago Chicago, IL
2011 Teaching and Choreographic Residency
Contemporary Dance
Chicago Dance Crash Chicago, IL
2011 Company Class
Contemporary Dance
Velocity Dance Center Seattle, WA
2007 - 2009 Weekly studio rental to teach a community Jazz dance class
SD Prism Dance Seattle, WA
2007 - 2009 Faculty
Contemporary Dance
The School of Spectrum Dance Theater Seattle, WA
2006 Faculty
Jazz Dance
Lou Conte Dance Studio Chicago, IL
2002 - 2005 Faculty
Jazz Dance
Impetus Dance Theater Chicago, IL
2001 - 2005 Company Class
Contemporary Dance
Northwest Ballet Academy Schaumburg, IL
2004 - 2005 Faculty
Jazz Dance, Ballet
Barrington Dance Academy Barrington, IL
1999 Faculty
Jazz Dance
Dance Center Evanston Evanston, IL
1998 - 1999 Faculty
Jazz Dance, Creative Movement
Performance
Erin Killmurray
2023 - 2024 Nightshade
An iterative and emerging group dance work exploring grief, groove, archive, ephemerality, crowds, collective rhythm, disorientation, desire. It is a living architecture, a memory, a celebration, and a vigil, bound by sound, movement, and each other.
https://www.erinkilmurray.com/dance-pages/nightshade
2013 - 2015 The Salts
Drawing inspiration from live music experiences, The Salts is an evening length immersive contemporary dance work examining the intimacies of a public vs. private persona with the spirit, prowess, and explosive performances of iconic front (wo)men. Through movement, text, sound, and direct audience engagement this work is an exercise in engaging dance audiences outside of the typical. Sharing the bill with local bands and guest performers in an immersive atmosphere, The Salts perform a set of high-velocity dances to distorted guitar, driving bass lines, wild vocals creating a kinetic energy - like seeing a band's performance from the inside of the kick drum. This completed work was developed over a year+ long process, much like a band, through long-game collaboration and experimental pop up performances at bars, nightclubs, and intimate performance spaces before premiering as an evening length production.
2013 - 2014 The Fly Honey Show
A dance forward performance project manifested by hundreds of movers, makers, ass-shakers, musicians, DJ’s, nightlife, and variety artists. Their live shows are like a sweet, sweaty, glittery, raunchy, sex-expansive, all-body-loving, queer-celebratory, hot, thicc, thot grrl music video that is dripping with a fiercely empowering ethos. Called a “Chicago institution” and described as “funny, ferocious, vulnerable, naked in every sense: it’s camp transcendent”.
Jennifer Kayle
2022
Nocturne For Sleepwalkers
Restaged trio as part of Another Stage of Restaging Ourselves, presented at The Englert Theater, Iowa City.
Kate Corby & Dancers
2019 - 2020
dancelikeaman
A simultaneously playful and sobering duet, dancelikeaman investigates the male dancing body as a site for complex questions about power, misogyny, heteronormativity, and childhood gender identity formation.
2013
Digging
A sextet exploring the possibilities of meditation for creativity, collaboration, and composition.
2012
Passing
An evening-length suite of dances exploring mortality, aging, life cycles, and our relationship with time.
2011
In Whole or in Part
In whole or in Part is an evening-length dance theater septet created in collaboration with visual artist Orit-Ben-Shitrit. The title is taken from the United Nations’ 1948 definition of genocide as a series of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group.” As originally conceived, In Whole or in Part includes performances by seven core collaborating performers and 7-20 local community performers.
Jessie Young
2013
ASH/LEIGH
an evening length performance experience focused on the suspension point—the excluded between— where more has been lost than gained. The performance is marked by dancers that encounter each other, move close and drop away from view. Emerging against a dark canvas evoked by the broken light of flashlights, bodies fight to navigate invisible terrains and inverted relationships. Premiered at The Den Theater, Chicago, IL.
Chicago Moving Co.
2013
Guest artist for the 2013 season. Performing restaged choreography by Nana Shineflug. The concert was at The Dance Center of Columbia College, Chicago, IL.
Paula Frasz / American Theater Co.
2012
Escape
America. 1940. Recently discovered in the vaults of America’s most prolific playwright, ATC pushes the boundaries of theatre by merging groundbreaking works from Tennessee Williams with the power of modern dance. ATC Artistic Director PJ Paparelli teams up with DanceLoop Chicago Artistic Director Paula Frasz to stage three theatrical explorations of escape in America: from white oppression in the Bible Belt, from a codependent mother and son in New England, to the bacchanal of Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Lucky Plush Productions
2011
Punk Yankees (Memory Mash)
Punk Yankees is a provocative and entertaining dance theater work that combines live performance, video, and the internet to unpack ideas about authenticity, originality, and the ownership of dance in the digital age. With the controversial nature of dealing with issues of intellectual property, the work takes on challenging topics including sampling, mash-ups, stylistic referencing, impersonation, unconscious theft, lineage, cultural appropriation, and ideas about “fair use” in dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDk8cNwJaCw
2005
Lulu Sleeps
One of Lucky Plush’s early evening-length works, Lulu Sleeps journeys through the poetic and absurd nature of dreams. The work was made with support from Chicago Dancemakers Forum and premiered at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMkRtwWvrvc
2004
Voyaging
Launching from Charles Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle, Voyaging tacks between historical and contemporary culture, looking at social behavior, class structure, and physical attraction in light of Darwin’s concepts of natural and sexual selection. Lucky Plush partnered with Walkabout Theater Company in the development and presentation of Voyaging.
https://vimeo.com/457058475/c75b113d49
2003
Endplay
Endplay uses Samuel Beckett's "Come and Go" as a point of departure. The piece highlights a group of characters whose rituals and games serve as a means of affirming themselves as they are lost in a cycle of endless repetition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Tmctx0t7M
Lingo
2010
A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light
A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light is a dance/theater/cabaret/glam-rock musical situated in the labyrinthine chambers of The Bullitt Cabaret. Audience members are free to watch the show from any vantage point, moving as they wish throughout the evening. In 2006, KT began investigating the relationship between audience, artist and proximity. This search led her to seek out environments that ask the performer and the witness to confront each other in more potent ways. A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light, in all its forms, is an outcropping of this search. Niehoff and her expanded posse of vibrant performers (including live music from the Seattle band Ivory in Ice World, original score by Scott Colburn and light by Evan Ritter) began with the premise that every interaction holds untapped potential. The performance sculpted uncommon encounters, moody collisions, raucous spectacle and virtuoso dancing – asking for more resonant connection and embracing the success or failure that ensues.
Scott/Powell Performance
2008 - 2010
Home
An investigation of the relationship between materials and the human body. Conceived by choreographer and visual artist Molly Scott with composer Jarrad Powell, the evening-length work Home premiered at the Erickson Theater, Seattle, May 20-23, 2010.
Salt Horse
2008 - 2010
Man On The Beach
Dark, dreamy, nightmarish. A series of dance theater vignettes explore a surreal encounter with a strange man on a beach.
Nandanse (Lauri Stallings)
2005
Eidolon
Nandanse was a pick-up company made up of dancers from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Joffrey Ballet, River North Dance Chicago, and freelance dancers like myself. Eidolon was performed on a double bill with Lucky Plush’s Surrelium as part of PAC/edge Performance Festival at The Athenaeum Theater, Chicago, IL.
Luna Negra Dance Theater
2004 - 2005
Full company member. Performed rep choreography by Brian Carey Chung, Pedro Ruiz, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Vicente Nebrada, and Eduardo Vilaro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpuQ43mXf2o
Mordine & Co.
2002 - 2005
Full company member. Part of four original creative processes.
Impetus Dance Theater
2000 - 2005
Founder, Artistic Director, Resident Choreographer, and Dancer. Performed choreography by Sarita Smith Childs, James Gregg, Misha Kaschock, Cheryl Mann, Mario Zambrano
Same Planet
2001 - 2002
Full company member. Performed choreography by Jason Ohlberg, Jeff Hancock, Anna Simone Levin.
Cerqua Rivera Art Experience
2001 - 2002
Full company member. I performed rep choreography by Wilfredo Rivera, Harrison McEldowney, and Nana Shineflug.
The Chicago Ballet (The Moose Project)
2001
Guest artist. Performed choreography by Paul Abrahamson.
River North Dance Chicago
1997 - 1999
I was a performing apprentice from 97-98, and a full company member from 98-99. I performed rep choreography by Sherry Zunker, Frank Chaves, Randy Duncan, Sam Watson, Harrison McEldowney, and Jeff Hancock.
James Kelly Choreography Project
1997
Guest Artist. Performed new and repertoire choreography by James Kelly. Presented at The Athenaeum Theater, Chicago.
Jump Rhythm Jazz
1996
Guest Artist. Performed the choreography of Billy Siegenfeld.
Visual Art Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2016
The Makespace / Harrisburg, PA / painting & collage
2015
Stash / Harrisburg, PA / collage
Little Amps Coffee / Harrisburg, PA / mixed media
2013
Tuesday Night Dinner / Chicago, IL / mixed media
2012
Aguilar Fettig Residence / Seattle, WA / mixed media
2011
Temple Gallery / Chicago, IL / collage
2010
Joe Bar / Seattle, WA / collage
2009
Cafe Zingaro / Seattle, WA / printmaking
Porchlight Cafe / Seattle, Wa / mixed media
W.E.T. / Seattle, WA / mixed media
Cornish Alumni Gallery / Seattle, WA / installation
2008
BUFU Gallery / Seattle, WA / painting
22 Doors / Seattle, WA / photography
2006
Rosebud Restaurant & Bar / Seattle, WA / photography
2001
Delectables Deli / Geneva, IL / painting
2000
Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea / Tucson, AZ / painting
Group Exhibitions
2016
The Makespace / New Eyes / photography
Susquehanna Art Museum / The City / video
2015
The Makespace w/ Amanda Owens / collage
2011
Vignettes / Seattle / photography
The Open Space Project / Chicago / drawing
2010
Joe Bar / Seattle / sculpture
2009
Cornish College of the Arts BFA exhibit / Seattle / printmaking
Canoe Social Club / Seattle / mixed media
Vermillion / Seattle / Sculpture
PONCHO Auction, Western Bridge / Seattle / printmaking
2008
Some Space Gallery / Seattle / printmaking
2004
The Paint Factory w/ Cheryl Mann / Chicago / painting
1999
Gallery 129 / Geneva, IL / painting
Honors and Awards
University of Iowa
2025 MFA Summer Research Fellowship
ACDA Gala official selection, Second Alternate selection for National conference: Mystic Sister
2024 Summer Project Grant
2023 Arts Fellowship
Cornish College of The Arts
2008 John Cage Award Nomination (Winner selected randomly)
Presidential Arts Scholarship
Arts Scholarship
2007 Presidential Arts Scholarship
2006 Nell Scholarship