Paige Cunningham Caldarella

Bio

Paige Cunningham Caldarella joined the faculty of Dance at Illinois in August 2022 after spending fifteen years at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, where she also held the position of Associate Chair. Paige danced with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC), performing nationally and internationally at prominent venues such as the Joyce Theater, David H. Koch Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Barbican in London, the Tate Modern Museum, and Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. During her time with the Cunningham Company, she had the opportunity to perform a wide range of Cunningham repertoire and participate in the creation of new works.

After leaving MCDC, Paige performed with the Chicago-based company The Seldoms, touring in New York and Russia, with additional performances at Stage 773, Links Hall and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She has collaborated and performed with various dance artists over the years including Onye Ozuzu, Timothy Buckley, Darrell Jones, Emily Stein, Alfonso Cervera, Anna Peretz Rogovoy, Mandy Salva and Colleen Halloran. Paige creates choreography that is informed by these diverse dance histories while blending contemporary ballet with modern dance forms. This approach seeks to challenge binary paradigms, move away from the perfectionism often found in ballet, and embrace a kind of physicality that recognizes discomfort, risk-taking, and conflict as essential components of growth. Her 2012 work, Without Consideration, for the Cincinnati Ballet, was described as “a modern dance piece cut with classical ballet… by turns satirical, ominous, and oddly compelling” by Julie Mullins of City Beat magazine. Paige’s choreography was recognized as Best of Chicago Dance 2013 by the Chicago Tribune and was listed among the Dance Top 10 for early 2017. She has received grants from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist program, and the Illinois Arts Council. Additionally, she was named a 2023 Merce Cunningham Trust Fellow and was a recipient of a 2023 Bearnstow Artist Retreat.

Paige has restaged Merce Cunningham’s work for several institutions, including Columbia College Chicago, Beloit College, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the American College Dance Association, and the Merce Cunningham Centennial celebration, Night of 100 Solos, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 2019, her teaching of the Merce Cunningham technique was featured on the cover of Dance Teacher Magazine’s Higher Education issue. She has taught the Cunningham technique for the Joffrey Ballet Academy’s trainee and conservatory programs, as well as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Paige has presented her research in pedagogy and choreography at national conferences such as the World Dance Alliance, the National Dance Education Organization, CORPS de Ballet International, and Audience Architects.

Paige holds a B.F.A. from the Juilliard School and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has been a guest artist at the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Florida, Beloit College, and the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the National Dance Education Organization and CORPS de Ballet International, and she currently serves on the board of the American College Dance Association.