NANCY STARK SMITH first trained as an athlete and gymnast, leading her to study and perform modern and postmodern dance in the early 1970s, greatly influenced by the Judson Dance Theater breakthroughs in NYC in the 1960s.  She received a BA from Oberlin College in Dance and Writing in 1974.
Nancy danced in the first performances of Contact Improvisation with Steve Paxton and others in 1972 in NYC and has since been central to its development as dancer, teacher, performer, writer/publisher, and organizer.  She travels worldwide teaching and performing Contact and other improvised dance work with many favorite dance partners and performance makers including Karen Nelson, Julyen Hamilton, Andrew Harwood, Jeff Bliss, Peter Bingham, and musician Mike Vargas.
In 1975, she cofounded Contact Quarterly dance and improvisation journal, which she continues to coedit, produce, and publish. Her writings appear in the book Taken By Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, and her first book, Caught Falling: The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas, with David Koteen, was released in 2008. She lives in western Massachusetts.