Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Joanie Smith to learn about her journey.
Founder and Choreographer of Shapiro & Smith Dance, Joanie Smith has been commissioned by companies as diverse as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Phoenix Dance Company of Leeds, UK; and the PACT Dance Company of Pretoria, South Africa.
Smith was recognized as an “Artist Of The Year” in 2011 by City Pages (Minneapolis), and was named a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Dance to Helsinki, Finland. Smith holds the Barbara Barker Endowed Chair in Dance at the University of Minnesota, an MA in Dance from UCLA, and toured the world in the companies of Murray Louis and Alwin Nikolais before founding Shapiro & Smith Dance.
Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!