Amy Smith is a Co-Director of Headlong Dance Theater, a Philadelphia-based contemporary dance company. She grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she studied ballet, jazz and tap. At Wesleyan University she studied modern dance, composition, improvisation, ballet, Bharata Natyam, and Ghanaian dance, and double majored in Dance and Religion. After college, Smith spent a year at the Center for New Dance Development in Holland, where she soaked up European New Dance and studied with Stephanie Skura, Ishmael Houston Jones, and Steve Paxton. Important teachers/mentors include Cynthia Novack and Richard Bull, Susan Foster, Deborah Hay, and Ann Trenka. She serves on the Dance/USA board of Trustees, and helped to create the service agency Dance/USA Philadelphia.