Michael Smuin

Michael Smuin (October 13, 1938 – April 23, 2007) was an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and theatre director born in Missoula, Montana. Over the course of his career he worked across ballet, Broadway, film, and television, earning recognition in multiple disciplines.

Smuin trained and performed as a principal dancer with two major ballet companies, the American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet. He served as co-artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet from 1973 through 1985, and in 1994 he founded his own company, the Smuin Ballet, based in San Francisco. Beyond those two institutions, his choreographic work extended to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Washington Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Milwaukee Ballet.

His Broadway career began in 1962, when he appeared as a dancer in Little Me. He returned to Broadway as a choreographer for Sophisticated Ladies in 1981, a production for which he also served as director. That same year he received Tony Award nominations for both Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical for that show. He choreographed Anything Goes in 1987, earning the Tony Award for Best Choreography and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography, both in 1988. His final Broadway credit as choreographer and director was Shogun: The Musical in 1990. He also choreographed the 1995 West End production of Mack and Mabel.

Smuin's film work included The Cotton Club, Rumble Fish, The Joy Luck Club, A Walk in the Clouds, and The Fantasticks. In television, he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for Great Performances: Dance in America in 1984, and had previously been nominated for the same honor in 1981.

Smuin died on April 23, 2007, after collapsing from a heart attack while teaching company class in San Francisco.