Chamber Dance Company Archive: Shapiro and Smith Dance

Danial Shapiro and Joanie Smith founded Shapiro & Smith Dance in 1985 after meeting in the companies of Murray Louis and Alwin Nikolais. Shapiro & Smith Dance has performed across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Canada, presented by major festivals and venues including the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Dance Theater Workshop, St. Mark’s Danspace Project, PS 122, Festival di Milano, Teatro de Danza in Mexico City, Recklinghausen RuhrFestSpiele, and the Korean International Festival. Danial Shapiro died of complications from prostate cancer in 2006 and now Joanie Smith continues as sole artistic director of Shapiro & Smith Dance, which has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation, the Target Foundation, New York State Council for the Arts, and the Jerome, Harkness, Greenwall, Dance Magazine, and Joyce Mertz-Gilmore foundations.

Danial Shapiro was born in New York City on January 5th, 1958. He died in Atlantic City on October 3rd, 2006. Joanie Smith continues to teach at the University of Minnesota as a faculty member of the Department of Theater Arts and Dance.

Watch Shapiro & Smith Dance's To Have and To Hold at the Media Arcade in Vol. 51 of the Chamber Dance Company Archive (DVD UWDP 001 v.51).