Maya Kraus

visiting assistant professor

Office: Dana Center 102
Telephone: 518-580-5369
Email: mayakraus@skidmore.edu

Maya Kraus is a dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, activist, collaborator, mother, partner and proud Vermonter. After receiving her BFA in Dance from Fordham University and The Alvin Ailey School, Maya danced, toured and taught with Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company in Fort Lee, NJ. She continued teaching in Northern NJ while also performing as a freelance dancer with companies such as FreeSpace Dance in Montclair, NJ. Maya then began work as a dancer at Matheny Medical and Education Center in Peapack, NJ within their Arts Access program-a program borne of evidence-based research that continues to explore arts creation for differently abled adults. In 2012 Maya was hired by Castleton University as an Adjunct Professor of Dance in the Theatre Arts Department. Her achievements include developing a Dance Minor in 2016 and establishing Castleton Collaborative Arts – a space for young artists to fully realize performance works on the main stage. Maya has choreographed numerous musicals, plays and dance works including Spring Awakening, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and My DNA  - an autobiographical dance piece on growing up Japanese American in non-inclusive spaces.  

Maya is in the last stretch of her journey pursuing a MFAIA (Masters of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts) with a concentration in Performance Creation from Goddard College. She has used this time to look into her Japanese American journey and the ancestral stories connected to water, cooking, Judo and mythology. Maya is a movement explorer, both in place and genre of movement who also draws inspiration as a mother to curious, wiggly children and as an educator and collaborator to those who seek adventure and mire in the uncomfortable.