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SHAINA CANTINO holds an MFA in dance from Smith College, works as a Licensed Massage Therapist/Craniosacral Therapist, and is a graduate of the National Theatre Institute and Kenyon College (BA, Distinction in Dance). Her creative and teaching work is grounded in twenty years of contemporary dance training as well as in improvisation for performance, contact improvisation (CI), environmental studies, and theater. Cantino is a recent recipient of the New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund and will be developing a solo piece this coming spring, premiering at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, MA. She was most recently commissioned to present a group choreography in the Smith College Faculty Concert. Cantino has also taught semester courses in contemporary technique (I-V), composition and CI at Wesleyan University, Keene State College, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College, as well as intensive CI workshops in Arezzo and Cagliari, Italy and Montreal, Canada. Cantino’s choreography was selected for the American College Dance Festival Association’s gala concert in 2014 and presented at the Kennedy Center in 2010. Her performance is noted for its understated humor and off-balance physicality. Cantino has collaborated with and performed in works by Aretha Aoki, Angie Hauser, Paul Matteson, Chris Aiken, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Kate Seethaler, Joy Davis, and Sara Coffin. She has intensively trained with Kirstie Simpson (2018), Sara Shelton Mann and Abby Crain (2018, 2016), Susan Rethorst (2016), Bebe Miller Company (2015), St. Petersburg State Theater Academy (2009), Kathleen Hermesdorf/Sara Shelton Mann/Keith Hennessy (2009), American Conservatory Theater (2008), and Bates Dance Festival (2007).

​Photo credit: Joshua Sugiyama