Maddie Ziegler Biography

Madison "Maddie" Nicole Ziegler (born September 30, 2002) is an American child dancer, actress and model. She is best known for appearing in six seasons of Lifetime's reality show Dance Moms and for starring in three music videos by Sia, "Chandelier", "Elastic Heart" and "Big Girls Cry", which cumulatively have attracted more than 1.8 billion views on YouTube. Ziegler has also guest-starred on scripted shows and danced on various TV shows, and she has been seen on magazine covers and in feature articles. She has modeled for Capezio, Ralph Lauren and Target, among other brands. Ziegler was named by Time magazine as one of the "30 most influential teens of 2015". She is expected to make her feature film debut in 2016 in The Book of Henry. She is also set to be a judge on the forthcoming season of So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation.

Early life

Ziegler was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Melissa Ziegler-Gisoni and Kurt Ziegler, who owned a mortgage company. She is of Polish, German and Italian descent. Her parents divorced in 2011, citing the financial and emotional toll that dance took on the family. She has been an active member of the Abby Lee Dance Company since the age of two. She trains in tap, ballet, lyrical, contemporary, acro, jazz, and aerial dance. Maddie Ziegler has a younger sister, Mackenzie (b. June 4, 2004), who appears with her on Dance Moms, two older half-brothers from her father's previous marriage, and two older step-siblings from the previous marriage of her step-father, Greg Gisoni, a vice-president at Westinghouse Electric Company.

Ziegler attended Sloan Elementary School until 2013, when she left to be homeschooled. Ziegler and her family have long lived in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, and now split their time between Murrysville and Los Angeles.

Career

Ziegler has won numerous titles at regional, state and national dance competitions, including the 2014 Dancers Choice Award for Favorite Dancer 17 & Under. In 2010, at age 8, Ziegler performed for Paula Abdul's reality television program Live to Dance, but the program was canceled before her performance aired. In 2011, Ziegler's mother earned a role on Lifetime's Dance Moms, a program that documents day-to-day activities of the young dancers on the Abby Lee Miller's Abby Lee Dance Company Elite Competition Team and their sometimes quarrelsome mothers. As of 2016, Ziegler continues to appear on the show alongside her mother and younger sister, Mackenzie. In 2013, she made guest appearances on a spin-off program, Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition.

In 2012, Ziegler landed her first professional acting job, portraying the character of Young Deb on an episode of the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva. In 2014, Ziegler appeared as a guest star in Episode 34 of HitStreak Summer, a made-for-mobile series. She continued her acting career in 2015 with guest spots on the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally and ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars. In January 2016, she guest starred in the episode "Ballet and the Beasts" on Nickelodeon's Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn. Ziegler has been cast in a forthcoming feature film, The Book of Henry. She has also been cast in a film written and to be directed by Sia, titled Sister.

Ziegler has appeared in music videos for artists including Alexx Calise, Sia and Todrick Hall. She gained wide notice, at the age of 11, by starring in the 2014 video for Sia's song "Chandelier", which won the ARIA Music Award for Best Video and received nominations at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards for Video of the Year and Best Choreography, winning the latter. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2015. The video has received more than 1.1 billion views on YouTube and, by January 2016, it was the 13th most viewed YouTube video of all time. In January 2015, Ziegler starred with Shia LaBeouf in "Elastic Heart", another Sia video, which accumulated more than 500 million YouTube views. The video "courted controversy and plaudits in equal measure", with some commentators perceiving it as having pedophilic undertones due to the relative ages of the dancers. Sia explained that the two dancers represented "warring 'Sia' self states", but she nevertheless apologized on Twitter to anyone who was offended. Later in 2015, Ziegler starred in "Big Girls Cry" to complete her trilogy of videos from Sia's album 1000 Forms of Fear. This video has received more than 100 million views. After the release of "Chandelier", Ziegler danced to Sia's' vocals on several television shows, including The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dancing with the Stars, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Saturday Night Live, as well as at the Hollywood Bowl. By the end of 2015, Ziegler had performed with Sia on the Ellen DeGeneres Show three times. She also performed "Chandelier", alongside Sia and Kristen Wiig, at the 2015 Grammy Awards.

Ziegler has modeled for such fashion lines as Glitzy Girl, Purple Pixies, Capezio, including their Betsey Johnson line, Target and Ralph Lauren. She has also been featured on numerous magazine covers and in fashion editorials for Kode, Schn! Magazine, Elle, Dance Spirit, Nylon, Vs., Seventeen, Harper's Bazaar, People, Dazed, Cosmopolitan, i-D, Billboard, Teen Vogue, Stella, Maniac, Vanity Fair Italia and Flaunt. At the 2015 New York Fashion Week, she acted as a correspondent for Elle. In 2014, Ziegler and her sister released a fashion line, The Maddie & Mackenzie Collection, through Mod Angel. Ziegler has an active social media presence, with more than 5 million Instagram followers and over 900,000 Twitter followers. Videos of her dancing had been viewed more than 1 billion times on YouTube by May 2015, and by February 2016, she had accumulated more than 1.8 billion views on YouTube.

Ziegler appeared as the featured dancer in the ABC TV special The Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60 on February 21, 2016, during the song "Part of Your World", sung by Kelsea Ballerini and choreographed by Travis Wall. A Huffington Post reporter called the number "stunning and graceful". Abby Lee Miller told Extra in February 2016 that Ziegler, as well as her mother and sister, are leaving Dance Moms after the current 6th season. Ziegler is set to be a judge on So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation, which premieres in May 2016.

Philanthropy

In 2012, Ziegler, along with her mother and sister, partnered with Starlight Children's Foundation to help raise awareness for chronically ill youth. Ziegler stated that she enjoys dedicating her time to helping other children, and that it is a rewarding experience.

Reputation

Billboard called Ziegler's work in "Chandelier" "a dazzling dance performance", while The Guardian commented that she "dances with such impressive flexibility". Rolling Stone thought that her "crisp moves and theatrical mugging were a great fit for Ryan Heffington's imaginative choreography" and praised her "charisma that makes this video mesmerizing: Her dancing makes your memory tingle". Dazed magazine said that "Ziegler interprets the song"?s lyrics into something that is deranged, isolated, manic and profound." People magazine called her "a super-human graceful alien sent from Planet Talented to make us mere mortals look really clumsy". In 2015, a The Huffington Post feature praised Ziegler's artistry:

Ziegler was named by Time magazine as one of the "30 most influential teens of 2015". She is also on the Harpers Bazaar list of "19 Rising Style Icons Aged 19 and Under" and won a 2016 People's Choice Award. She has been nominated for a 2016 Shorty Award.

Videography

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Notes
Lucky Thirteen	2015	Herself	Short dance film by i-D, starring Ziegler, celebrating turning 13; voiceover by Chlo Sevigny reading from Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin
The Book of Henry	2016	Christina	Post-production
Ballerina		Unknown	Post-production, Voice role
Sister		Unknown	Pre-production

Television

Key

Denotes acting credits

Title	Year	Role	Network	Notes
Live to Dance	2010	Herself	CBS	Episode did not air
Dance Moms	2011-2016		Lifetime	Main cast (136 episodes)
The View	2012	Performer	ABC	Dance "A Child Is Born" (Season 15, Ep. 110)
Drop Dead Diva		Young Deb	Lifetime	Guest, Episode "Lady Parts"
The View	2013	Performer	ABC	Dance "The Last Text", episode dated February 20, 2013
Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition			Lifetime	2 Episodes
The Ellen DeGeneres Show	2014		NBCUniversal	Sia: "Chandelier" (Season 11, Ep. 160)
Jimmy Kimmel Live!		Herself; Dancer	ABC	Sia: "Chandelier"; Ziegler teaches hosts "Chandelier" dance (Season 12, Ep. 95)
Dancing with the Stars		Performer		Sia: "Chandelier", with Allison Holker (Season 19, Ep. 4)
Saturday Night Live	2015	Performer	NBC	Sia: "Elastic Heart" (Season 40, Ep. 11)
The Ellen DeGeneres Show			NBCUniversal	Sia: "Elastic Heart" (Season 12, Ep. 93)
57th Annual Grammy Awards			CBS	Sia: "Chandelier" with Kristen Wiig
Austin & Ally		Shelby Hayden	Disney Channel	Guest, Season 4, Ep. 5 "Homework and Hidden Talents"
Dancing with the Stars		Performer	ABC	(Season 20, Ep. 9)
Pretty Little Liars		Creepy Dancer	ABC Family	Guest, Season 6, Ep. 5 "She's No Angel"
The View		Performer	ABC	Dance "Together We Stand" (Season 19, Ep. 14)
The Ellen DeGeneres Show			NBCUniversal	Sia: "Alive" (Season 13, Ep. 59)
Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn	2016	Eiffel	Nickelodeon	"Ballet and the Beasts" (Season 2, Ep. 14)
The Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60		Performer	ABC	Kelsea Ballerini: "Part of Your World"
So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation		Judge	Fox	Upcoming

Music videos

Title	Year	Artist	Notes
"It's like Summer"	2011	LUX	Supporting
"Cry"	2012	Alexx Calise	Lead
"Summer Love Song"		Brooke Hyland	Supporting
"It's a Girl Party"	2014	Mack Z
"Freaks like Me"		Todrick Hall	Supporting, vocals
"Chandelier"		Sia	Lead ARIA Music Award for Best Video MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography Nom"?MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year Nom"?Grammy Award for Best Music Video.
"Shine"		Mack Z	Supporting
"Elastic Heart"	2015	Sia	Lead, alongside Shia LaBeouf Nom"?MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video
"Big Girls Cry"			Lead
"Wear Em Out"		Kendall K	Assistant Choreographer

Commercials

Company and product	Year	Featured song(s)	Description
Target blue jeans	2015	ABC (Tori Kelly cover)	"Back to School 2015: Jeans Jam". Ziegler and others dancing in Target jeans. The commercial had 1,092 national TV airings.
WowWee snap pets			Ziegler and her sister take pictures of themselves with the mini Bluetooth cameras.
Capezio	2016		"Dance In You". Zielger stars as a disruptive force for self-expression in a ballet class.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2013	Industry Dance Awards	Dancers Choice Awards Favorite Dancer	rowspan=6
2014	Industry Dance Awards	Dancers Choice Awards Favorite Dancer 17 & Under
2015	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Dancer
	Industry Dance Awards	Dancers Choice Awards Favorite Dancer 17 & Under
2016	People's Choice Awards	DailyMail.com Seriously Popular Award
	Shorty Awards	Best In Dance