Hank Smith is an interdisciplinary performance artist and director / choreographer who uses his skills as a dancer, mime, clown and actor to explore aspects of human relationships. The backbone of his work is rhythm, manifested in the percussive use of voice, the body and improvisational rhythm tap dancing, all of which are used to carry out the African American tradition of "stomping the blues".

He has been awarded and / or commissioned by Franklin Furnace, University Settlement for the Arts, 92nd St. Y Harkness Center for Dance and Movement Research. His work promoting the art of tap dance earned him a Ethnic Dance Award and in 1998 he hosted six evenings of performance / conversations with master tap dancers called, "The Story of Tap" commissioned by Dixon Place as part of its 1998 Mondo Cane! series. In 1997 he directed and choreographed, "Stormy", a new musical based on the film, "Stormy Weather", at Bloomfield College, NJ., and earlier that year, his full length work, THREE'S THE ONE, had a successful run at Performance Space122, NY. His work has also been presented at The Gowanus Arts Exchange, The Kitchen, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Movement Research.

He has worked with a variety of artists including, James 'Buster' Brown, Marion Coles, David Pleasant, Martha Bowers, Jo McNamara, Fred Holland, Pete Seeger and Savion Glover.

Mr. Smith has performed in Mexico at "El Encuentro Nacional y Internacional de la Nueva Pantomima, 1984" and was a featured performer at the 1985 New York International Festival of Clown theater. In 1984, he went to Japan to study and perform Kyogen theatre and in 1989 studied with Augusto Boal in Rio de Janiero.

He has over thirty years experience in television production, having worked at WPIX-TV, ABC, NBC, PBS and on independent productions. For twenty years he was with Sesame Street, where he functioned as stage manager, associate director, choreographer and performer. He is a recipient of a 1999 New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship Award in Interdisciplinary Performance and a 2001 BAXten Arts and Artists in Progress Award.

The Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) premiered his solo multimedia work Smitty, Me and NYC, and also awarded him with one of the first BAX10 Arts Artists in Progress Awards in 2001. Holding an M.A. in African American Culture and Performance from New York University, Hank is Assistant Professor at Bloomfield College, New Jersey, coordinating the college's Digital Video major. He is Chairman of The Copasetics Connection, an organization created by Leroy Myers designed to carry on the legacy of the famed tap fraternity, The Copasetics.

During the 2004-2005 season he returns to Dixon Place with The Story of Tap, Part II.

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Quotes:

Hank Smith's The Story of Tap, an imaginative six-part series of interviews and performances with tap dancers....took shape as a resolutely informal talkathon, pausing for live tapping and film footage, with dancers of different traditions.....I walked away from the series with a rare sense of having eavesdropped on something real....And Smith was largely responsible. For the gangly, affable, wide-eyed master of ceremonies (and frequent dance partner of his invitees) never stood on cermony with us.
Molly McQuade, DANCEMAGAZINE

Hank Smith is a rhythm tapper whose goal is to get his students to improvise....it's about making music with your feet with no musical accompaniment. With the help of his soft-spoken manner and clear instruction, you learn almost without thinking about it.
Gia Kourias, TIME OUT

Smith...seduces you gradually, with his patriach's face, his eloquent arms and hands, his clm concentration, his wry wisdon.
Toby Tobias, THE VILLAGE VOICE

Smith is agile, charismatic, smooth and breezy. Smith has fun playing with us. He delightfully teases and taunts; gesturing parenthetically with his hands, tap dancing or launching into a series of movement transformations.
Nefretete Rasheed, ATTITUDE MAGAZINE

Hank Smith opened with such economy of gesture that the slightest motion - a splayed hand suddenly ardhing - could startle the audience as if it were on taut leash suddenly yanked.
Margaret Spillane, NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT