About the artist

Hi, glad you could make it.

I’m Maya Billig and I am a choreographer, director, and dancer based in Los Angeles, California. Choreography is how I process culture, map contradictions, and record our collective condition through an absurdist lens. I aim to artistically inhabit layered situations where humor, glamour, chaos, and critique coexist. A preference for contradiction: enchanted and corrupted, seductive and grotesque, opulent and off-kilter. I’m drawn to the mythologies we inherit and enact collectively, and how performance can expose, twist, and rewire them. Growing up in the glittering chaos of Miami, and traveling to 35 countries shaped how I see stories: fractured, refracted, never just one thing.

With much gratitude, my work has been supported by organizations including Jacob’s Pillow, Knight Foundation, Miami Light Project, Dance Magazine, Highways Performance Space, Adrienne Arsht Center, Odyssey Theatre, Live Arts Miami, and Locust Projects. I’ve had the honor of being an artist-in-residence at Art Omi, Miami Light Project, Deering Estate, Koubek Center, and Pioneer Winter’s Grass Stains. I received an MFA in Choreographic Inquiry from the University of California Los Angeles, and a BFA in dance from New World School of the Arts.

 My dance films and music videos have been shown across various countries, taking me on a path of collaborating with filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists internationally. When living in Miami, I founded Syncopate Collective, which focuses on community-based initiatives, and my own project-based company, Billy Gee Dance Theatre. I am currently a lecturer and professor at UCLA and Pepperdine University.