Multi-award winning performer/choreographer/director/producer, Toni Basil, has been at the vanguard of dance and music for the last thirty years.

Toni Basil received a Gold Album for 1981’s Word Of Mouth and a double platinum record for her smash single – Mickey, and holds the same from the UK, Canada and Australia.  She received a Grammy nomination for her Word Of Mouth long-form video album, which she produced, choreographed, and directed.  Billboard’s #1 song for the month of December, 1982, Mickey was installed in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as one of the groundbreaking singles of the 1980’s, and has appeared on the soundtrack to countless films.  The Mickey music video, which featured Basil dancing in a Las Vegas High cheerleader outfit (her alma mater), resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1992, earned her a place as an American Video Artist in the coveted Museum of Modern Art’s calendar.  Her second Chrysalis album, Toni Basil, spawned the MTV Music Award nominated video hit “Over My Head.”  She also starred, co-directed, and choreographed two self-titled BBC-television specials, which were re-aired in record time due to unprecedented audience response, and are credited as launching “Mickey” as a hit single in the U.K. charts and, ultimately, worldwide.

A multiple Emmy Award and Grammy Award nominee, Toni was the first recipient of the 1995 American Choreography Awards (ACA) Innovator Award.  Toni also received the 1997 ACA Award for Outstanding Choreographic Achievement in Television.  In 1998, she was nominated in the Commercial category for The GAP Khaki’s Groove and in the Motion Picture category for My Best Friend’s Wedding, and in 2003 in the Television category for Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ series Watching Ellie. She shared the Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award with Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner for her contribution to the revived Tony-Award winning, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.  Toni also graced the cover of Dance Magazine in a distinctive tribute for her ongoing contribution to dance as one of the most trail blazing and innovative choreographers in the country.  Most recently, she received the Choreographers’ Carnival “Lifet

Toni has choreographed and/or directed over thirty music videos, including co-helming Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime” music video with David Byrne.  She co-directed and choreographed, with David Bowie, his Diamond Dogs Tour – which is regarded as the beginning of ‘rock theatre’, and his later Glass Spider Tour.  She has choreographed more than a dozen music tours for artists including Tina Turner, David Byrne, and Matchbox 20.  She has been the dance director and choreographer for Bette Midler’s notorious live performances for over twenty years, including her Emmy-Award winning HBO special, Diva Las Vegas.  She has staged the past two Enrique Iglesias tours, and coached Mick Jagger for his many live performances and latest solo video – God Gave Me Everything.

Toni’s feature film credits include choreography for such classics as American Graffiti, The Rose, Peggy Sue Got Married, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Legally Blonde.  Her subtle choreographic hand was visible throughout Tom Hanks’ directorial debut – That Thing You Do, and for Julia Roberts in Something To Talk About.

Toni has worked on an incredible range of television programming, from the NAACP Image Awards and Saturday Night Live, to Sesame Street and the MTV Video Music Awards.  She has choreography credits on over 50 videos, and on eleven as director /choreographer.  Her recurring performances on The New Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour earned Toni an Emmy Nomination for Choreography in 1988.  Most recently, she has lent her talent to and episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and Cold Case.

As one of the original founding members of the legendary street dance group of the 1970s and “Soul Train” favorite – The Lockers, Toni is recognized as a seminal influence in bringing street dance to the attention of the American public.  Toni’s production of Shockin’ The House: Two Decades Of L.A. Street Dance, presented at the LA Festival, flattened the audience with style, savvy, and historical substance.  She is currently writing a book “Shockin’ the House” on the history of American Street Dance.  Coming full circle, Toni was able to give back to “Soul Train” by choreographing The TV Land Awards Salute to Soul Train.

Toni has acted in numerous films including, Easy Rider, and Five Easy Pieces, as well as appeared in a wide variety of television shows.  She has studied the techniques of Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, Julien Beck, Judith Molina and Gratowski.  She was a member of The Actor’s Studio, as well as Sam Blazer’s groundbreaking improvisational theatre group at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles.

In the late1960s, Toni directed four short art films.  Pre-dating music videos, these avant garde pieces found a new audience due to their inclusion of 2005’s Semina Culture:  Wallace Berman & His Circle exhibit that opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and traveled to the Grey Art Gallery in New York.  The L.A. Times noted that Toni Basil, filmmaker’s “deft editing transformed an ordinary ping pong match between Gray and Stockwell into an energetic dance routine.”

Toni has always kept her creative eye on the pulse of each new generation remaining the last word on what is hip.  As a classically trained dancer, Toni’s time is divided between ballet and African dance classes by day, and underground dance clubs at night, including hip-hop, West Coast swing and lindy.  She has immersed herself in the Latin music and dance scene, adding to her list of expertise: Afro/Cuban, Tango, Flamenco, Salsa, as well as studies in Latin percussion. She guest performs with the top Los Angeles based salsa bands Son Mayor and Cecilia Noel and The Wild Clams, dancing, singing, and playing percussion.

Continuing in the family tradition, her father an orchestra leader and mother a vaudevillian, Toni is the embodiment of a “diverse” talent.  She has excelled in every entertainment medium – stage, music, commercials, television, film and video. Her unique form of artistic mastery is at the heart of all of her work.  She remains a true pioneer in the dance world…a visionary, and a genuine American treasure. Want to know more? Surf the web on google.com for Toni Basil, and choose from over 69,000 references.

Representation: Julie McDonald – Tony Selznick – Andrew Jacobs