Santee Smith

Tekaronhiáhkhwa Santee Smith is a Kahnyen'kehàka multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and producer from Ohswé:ken / Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario. After six years of training at Canada's National Ballet School and degrees from McMaster University and York University, Smith returned to dance as a choreographer in 1996. In 2005, she founded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre to explore Indigenous and new performance, foster international Indigenous collaboration, and develop training in these forms.

Smith's artistic practice draws on traditional grounded steps that travel through the body, evolving through improvisation into contemporary form. Her movement vocabulary integrates breath, energy directed into the ground, ballet-derived lines, turns and jumps, alongside movement languages created specifically for each work. She builds ensemble structures that permit individual expression within collective form.

Her commissioned choreography includes works for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, and the North American Indigenous Games. *Homelands*, a multimedia performance she choreographed for the National Arts Centre, explores kinship among Indigenous women, lands, and waterways. Smith's life and work have been featured in television and film productions carried by CBC, NFB, APTN, and PBS, including CBC Arts' *The Move II*.

In 2023, Smith was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada and serves as the 19th Chancellor of McMaster University.