About

Biography

Ashley Elizabeth Daigle began her formal dance instruction in Manchester, Connecticut. Shortly after, Ashley choose to further her pre-professional studies at Goucher College where she received her BA in Dance. During her time at Goucher, Ashley was fortunate enough to study abroad in Taipei, Taiwan at the Taipei National University of the Arts. And was fortunate enough work with numerous guest artists such as: Nicolo Fonte, Susan Jaffe, Zippora Karz, Emery LeCrone, Nicholas Leichter, Gina Patterson, and Amy Seiwert.

After graduation, she moved her dance roots to the Chicago. During her time there, Ashley worked at the Lou Conte Dance Studio and was a student with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Scholarship Program. She was a featured Guest Artist with Ruth Page Civic Ballet, and she currently is a Master Teacher at Burklyn Ballet Theater. In 2019, Ashley received her MFA in Dance from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She is a New York City-based contemporary ballet choreographer whose current works focus on crafting a new landscape for gender accepted norms in ballet.

Artist Statement

My ongoing choreographic research investigates the unexplored qualities that take shape in space as inherent qualities of ballet and contemporary dance braid through and around each other, weaving together a canvas of novel movement phrases. My dances adhere to a classical arrangement in terms of form, but arise from a contemporary mindset–as an artist, it is the intricate details and the infinite possibilities that have been proffered to us by modernism and postmodernism that make the process of making dances rewarding for me. While I deeply value abstraction, I also strive to take often-overlooked humanistic actions and give them proper space in which they can be admired. This practice manifests itself through slips of choreographic quirkiness that reveal themselves in raw, unexpected moments.

Natural environments inspire me as an artist. I enjoy the challenge of bringing the outside world inside, so that my viewers in the theater feel as if they are transported to an alternate atmosphere that subsists externally. I challenge my dancers to use their five senses to help them explore, discover, and travel through these usual properties together. I find great pleasure in making articulate choreographic choices that take my audience on a passage from a traditional rooted space to a lively habitat. I do this through textures, colors, sound, human behavior, and social rules. It requires a great deal of imagination, conjuring, and hints at some magical transformation.

Teaching Résumé

Mile Square Theatre, Hoboken, New Jersey

• Ballet, Contemporary, Pointe, Pre-K Ballet
• OPEN Adult Ballet Class

Burklyn Ballet Theater, Johnson, Vermont

• Master Teacher – Contemporary

Ballet School of Stamford at Chelsea Piers, Stamford, Connecticut

• Ballet

Divine Rhythms Dance, West Islip, New York

• Contemporary

New York University Tisch School of the Arts Summer High School Program, New York, New York

• Adjunct Professor-Ballet and Repertory

New York University Tisch School of the Arts Future Dancers and Dancemakers, New York, New York

• Ballet, Contemporary, Composition, and Improvisation

*Future Dancers and Dancemakers is a free intensive program for high school students. The program focuses on technical training, choreography, and performance.

 Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Youth Program, Chicago, Illinios

• Creative Movement