Bio

Tori is a dance artist, performance coach, and choreographer based in Boise, Idaho and Los Angeles, California.  Tori first fell in love with dance watching VHS tapes of the Royal Cambodian Ballet rented from the local Oriental Market. When pretending to Riverdance in the living room was no longer enough, Tori opened up a yellow book and enrolled herself in her first ballet class at age 8 and hasn't stopped dancing since.

Although Tori trained as a professional ballet and contemporary dancer, her heart lies in Middle East and North African dances, where she is a forever-student of folklore, modern raqs sharki or belly dance, and fusion dances. With a perpetual interest in bridging societal and cultural divides, Tori uses dance as a tool to educate and inspire as many people as possible to value our differences (and of course to get up and move to the beat). 

Tori has been the creative director for the critically acclaimed Big Bad-Ass Belly Dance Show and The Art of Belly Dance in Boise, Idaho. Tori is the recipient of grants from the Boise City Department of History and Art, Idaho Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has a BA in Theatre and Political Economics from the College of Idaho and an MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University.

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For more videos and images, please visit the Gallery. 

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Experience

Scroll to the bottom of the page for Tori's full Curriculum Vitae 

From a young age Tori has taken classes in many dance genres, most notably classic and modern ballet. She has participated in professional ballet performances and performed musical theatre styles at The College of Idaho. Tori started her belly dance journey as a professional apprentice under Cecilia Rinn and StarBelly School of Dance. She has taken workshops from many talented and beautiful dancers, and makes a point to do specific trainings and workshops in belly dance styles several times a year. Tori has trained extensively in ballet, pointe, jazz, lyrical/contemporary and modern dance in Idaho and in Europe.  Tori has experience in Broadway styles through theatrical training as well as a BA in Theatre Arts and has participated in pointed dance and pedagogy trainings such as the Arab Dance Seminar, the Pomegranate SEEDs Teacher Training, and the Limon Dance Foundation Home Edition II Teacher Training. 

Selected Past Performances and Collaborations

Big Bad Ass Belly Dance Show at the Visual Arts Collective
The Art of Belly Dance at the Sapphire Room (this show has featured Delilah Flynn, Karim Nagi, Myra Krien and Cecilia Rinn)
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small matters with Migration Theory
Sofia's Greek Bistro and the Taj Mahal of Boise with The Starbelly Dancers
Dances in the Tent of Rubies, Invaders of the Heart 2020: Flappers and Fringe, Boise Pride Fest, Steve Nelson Benefit Show, Trashion Show benefiting Idaho Rivers United, A Persian Night benefiting Tidwell Social Work Services & Consulting, Hyde Park Street Fair, Goddess Fest, Boise Library Comic Con, Frankly Burlesque Marathong, Pussy Cat Ball and other NUrse Productions Events, Treefort Music Festival, Capital Street Market, Idaho Renaissance Festival, Carnival Salsa Night at the Knitting Factory, St. Alphonsis Festival of Trees, International Dance Night: Boise Music Festival, Arabian Nights with the Serenata Orchestra, Day of the Young Child at the Idaho Botanical Gardens, Art in the Park, Live Work Create Garden City First Friday, We Art Women at Art Source Gallery and more! 

Artist Statement

"I am a cultivator of moments – a gatherer of intent. I use movement to create meaningful relationships between perception and reality. What inspires me about the art of dance is its unbounded potential to spread joy and bridge all of the gaps that divide us as human beings. Dance is a living history of people intrenched in song, in war, in the struggles of the spirit, and hope. To me, dance connects the often-severed mind, body, and spirit – dance heals. 
Creating art is an act of compassion and to be a dancer in many ways is a sacrifice. Dance has taught me that I need to sacrifice my ego, my tendencies, and my preconceptions. With this in mind, I focus on dance forms, concepts and movements that build communities, tell stories, and create memories for anyone with the heart of a dancer.

In order to dance and continue dancing forever, I feel like I will always be a learning, I always need to remain humble, and that the moments of magical intent and connection that I work so hard to make are truly fleeting. Videos and photos may capture wonderful poses and inspiring scenes but experiencing dance in the way that rattles your bones requires presence. If I could describe in a single word what I chase as an artist, it would be presence. " 

​--Tori King

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching Statement

One of the most important aspects of great teachers is being present and calling forth what the students need and are ready for. While standards are necessary, finding a flexible path toward teaching fosters growth in students and teachers alike. With this in mind, I am more interested in developing artists in totality than only great dancers.

I’ve found that I learn more about what I’m teaching when I’m the professor because I value the insight of the human beings I interact with. This is how I keep my passion ignited and my curriculum fresh. As we grow and evolve as a society, we need to be able to encompass necessary themes involving empathy, accurate history, anti-racism, political economics, and mindfulness – teaching thoughts without the entire context isn’t helpful to young dancers as they embrace the world. Removing some seriousness and introducing play, exploration, creativity, and wonder to a classroom/studio will keep students returning and growing the next generation of artists.

Considering these times of uncertainty, it is my job to have an awareness of how my actions may seem and may potentially harm students. There are reasons behind every action – even if reason may seem irrational, there is a truth to the emotion behind it. Having empathy and endeavoring to meet students where they are as opposed to robotically following the demands of a syllabus is the only way I want to share dance. I’ve not noted that having a trauma-informed approach allows an educator to better care for the emotional bodies of the students – often, the quality of education is better.

I see value in drilling techniques and going over well-known information, but I only want to teach if I am also a scholar and researcher. Developing my methods, skills, and experiences for students to learn from benefits my students but also dance as a practice – there is so much potential in our field and I am happy to traipse the edges, fail or succeed, and report back my findings through my teaching and/or teaching practices. I am grateful for the privileges and opportunities I have been afforded and adding my discoveries is my deep-felt thanks to my mentors that paved the path for me.

Dance can be used to express things that language cannot, but it can also be used to augment ideas outside the discipline of dance in deep and meaningful ways. We all have connections we can make within academic disciplines that exist today – for instance, witnessing historical dance helps us understand our past, dance is an excellent cross-training tool for athletes, and on and on. However, knowing that our bodies are a repository for our deep selves and deep understanding/learning, how can we incorporate dance into every curriculum, and how can we genuinely teach dance as a language that is alive and evolving, as a training tool for many disciplines, and something just as necessary as other disciplines? Every single dance class needs this idea – from the very beginning.
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When we dance, we are inherently making statements, affecting our inner and outer worlds, and changing our lives on many levels – students deserve to know this so that they can honor the fantastic art they are partaking in and understand that they are a part of the living story of the dance.