Shapiro & Smith Dance at 25 Programming Announced

Twin Cities contemporary dance institution Shapiro & Smith Dance celebrates 25 years with a spring program at the Cowles Center for Dance & Performing Arts that includes two world premieres and three repertory works. The centerpiece of the program is Voices, in which company founder and artistic director Joanie Smith (City Pages' 2010 "Artist of the Year") has invited five former Shapiro & Smith dancers and guest artists to create "dance phrases or encounters" that will be woven into a new work for the company, with live music by the Orange Mighty Trio.

 

"This new work is a way of acknowledging all of the voices, including Danny's and mine, that have been a part of our work for over 25 years," said Smith, referring to co-founder of Shapiro & Smith Dance and Smith's life partner, Danial Shapiro, who passed away in 2006. Other contributors include Mathew Janczewski, company member for six years; Erin Thompson, featured in Shapiro & Smith Dance's Diva Project; Wilson Mendieta, Broadway veteran and company member for five years; Uri Sands, soloist in Fathers and Sons, which Shapiro & Smith set on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1996, also featured in the original version of company hit ANYTOWN; and Carl Flink, guest artist for two seasons and ANYTOWN cast member. Smith will thread all of this together with new material she is creating with the current company.

The program's second premiere is a new solo for Joanie Smith, created by Smith and long-time collaborators composer Scott Killian and writer David Greenspan. Personal and humorous, the work will reflect on a career spent performing. Shapiro & Smith Dance will also reprise last season's favorites, Pat A Cake, "...a laugh out loud duet" (Star Tribune) and the exhilarating Bolero, praised for its "gut-busting athleticism and gut-wrenching emotion" (City Pages), dedicated this season to Bob and Kathie Goodale.

The highlight of repertory favorites will be Family -- Shapiro & Smith Dance's first ensemble work from 1988 and Killian's first composition for the company, marking 24 years of collaboration and over 20 original works. "Family actually takes place on an old armchair, which is moved on and around the stage to signify different rooms, family members and memories," said Smith. "It reads like a play, rather than a straight dance work, and focuses domestic issues both funny and dark. I think it's the right time to reprise."

Founded in New York City in 1987, Shapiro & Smith Dance moved to Minneapolis in 1995 because of the vibrant arts community and Smith's acceptance of an endowed chair position in dance at the University of Minnesota. The company immediately establishing itself as an important national voice in the Twin Cities contemporary dance scene. "Shapiro & Smith Dance has now been a Minnesota dance company for twice as many years and we were in New York. Minnesota immediately became a real home for Danny and I and Shapiro & Smith Dance... We got to know our neighbors, vacationed up north, and found wonderfully gifted dancers to perform our work."

"The qualities of Shapiro & Smith Dance that have always made them exceptional are their physicality, theatricality, and wit -- especially the unique ways they combine these qualities," said Twin Cities dance critic Linda Shapiro (no relation to Danial). "No other company in this area has their ability to explore subjects from Jewish shtick, to Madam Blavatsky's theosophy, to the Holocaust, to working class America with such originality and élan. How fortunate for us."

Voices: program
Family (1988) - original composition by Scott Killian
Title TK - world premiere solo for Joanie Smith, created by Smith with composer Scott Killian and writer

David Greenspan

Voices - world premiere, live music by Orange Mighty Trio

- Intermission -

Pat A Cake (2010)
Bolero (2010) - dedicated to Bob and Kathie Goodale

Show times: April 6-8, 2012

Friday & Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 7pm

Tickets: $24
Group sales: 20% off groups of 10 or more
Box office: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am-5pm; Sunday, 2 hours prior to performance
Phone: 612.206.3600
Online: http://thecowlescenter.org/events/performances-events/shapiro-smith/

In person: 528 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403
Performance venue: Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts

528 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403