About

Shira Kagan-Shafman is a New York City based dancer and choreographer. Recently, she premiered her work, Anchor in Continuum, in collaboration with violinist Leandria Lott at Poster House museum and it we be restaged at Triskelion Arts as a part of WAXworks in April 2023. She is a recipient of the 2023 B. Wilson Foundation grant.

She has spent time in Israel participating in Batsheva Dance Company’s Summer Course for outstanding dance students, taking Gaga classes and learning Ohad Naharin repertory, including sections of Sadeh 21, Naharin’s Virus, Hora, and Venezuela. She also spent 5 weeks in Israel engaging in an ethnographic study of Judaism. She has attended Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, Gallim Dance Winter Intensive at the Juilliard School and the American Dance Festival Winter Intensive at NYU Tisch. In 2020, she was selected as a School Program Intern at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and has interned for A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and Alexandra Beller/Dances. In August 2021, she participated in Arts on Site Residency and Retreat in process for her work, To Breathe Over Seas, which premiered at Arts on Site in December 2021 and was restaged in March 2022. Kagan-Shafman has performed professionally in works by Caitlin Corbett, Kelley Donovan, Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp, Peggy Florin, Dean Moss, Rebecca Stenn, jess pretty, Joanna Kotze and Mariana Valencia. 

Kagan-Shafman grew up in the Boston area and began her dance training at Ballet Arts Center and the Dance Place, and later attended the Cambridge School of Weston. She additionally attended intensives through Summer Stages at Concord Academy under the tutelage of Richard Colton and Amy Spencer. There her teachers included Seán Curran, Teri Weksler, Daniel McCusker and Marissa Palley.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Contemporary Dance from the New School, where she studied under Nia Love, Rebecca Stenn, Janet Panetta, Stacy Spence and Neil Greenberg. She also spent a semester studying in Israel at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and Hebrew University through DanceJerusalem. There her studies included Ballet, Cunningham Technique and Gaga as well as learning Ohad Naharin repertory, including sections of Sadeh 21, Mamootot, Hora, and Last Work and dancing in new works by Roni Chadash and Noa Zuk.