With diverse experience as a filmmaker, choreographer, performer, and curator, Heather Shaw’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The World National Radio Show, IPA Press Arts, Bold Magazine, thINKing Dance, and more.
Heather is the co-director of the activist screendance documentary, Telephone, with Krishna Washburn. The first of its kind, Telephone celebrates the art form of audio description for dance, allowing blind and visually impaired people to be included fully in the joy of artistic expression. The film has screened across the country, including at Lincoln Center, Mill Valley Film Festival, San Francisco Dance Film Festival, New Museum Los Gatos, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Telephonereceived support from New York State Council on the Arts, Puffin Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Town of Los Gatos, NYU Center for Disability Studies, and more. Through her work with Telephone, Heather has guest lectured at NYU, Berklee College of Music, Carnegie Mellon, Carleton College, and Rutgers.
Heather’s choreography has been featured at YAGP, California Dance Classics, ONYX Dance Co, spARC Dance Festival, Dance Mission SF, and more. In 2020, she was selected as one of five Project Tier choreographers from across the country for Regional Dance America’s NCI. She is currently the Artistic Director of Montage Contemporary Company and teaches ballet and contemporary at Montage Dance Studio and TDC of Los Gatos. She previously taught barre and fitness at Equinox, Pure Barre, and on the FOX Studios lot.
As a dancer, Heather performed professionally with MKM Bollystars and Daurden Contemporary Dance Theater in Los Angeles, and currently with ArcTangent Dance in San Jose, CA. In 2016, she participated in the Vertigo International Dance Program in Jerusalem through a MASA grant.
Heather received her early dance training at Santa Cruz Ballet Theater and TDC of the Bay Area. She is a graduate of the two year acting program at The Meisner Technique Studio in San Francisco and holds a BA in Philosophy (with a Theater/Dance minor) from UC Berkeley.
As a curator, Heather has served as Performing Arts Manager at the Oshman Family JCC and Co-Curator of TEDxPaloAlto. Her artistic interests include exploring the intersection of movement, sentience, perception, cultural behavior, and aesthetics. She is the founder of Moonshot Creative Studios, LLC and is currently in the early stages of her new documentary, The Kid in Blue.
Photo Credit (images 1, 3, 5, 6) 7: Lauren Hoskins, courtesy of ArcTangent Dance Image Description 1: Headshot of Heather (female, long brown hair, green eyes) looking at the camera, hands softly at one side of waist. Image 2: Black and white image of Toby MacNutt, sitting on heels, hands interlaced over chest, looking to the side in a plant filled dance studio, crutches on floor. Film festival laurels are overlaid – San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival and Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (all Official Selection, 2023), and ReelAbilities Film Festival Columbus. Image 3: Action shot of Heather with a deep bend in her knees, arms reaching. Image 4: A behind the scenes photo of a documentary film shoot. A camera is shown in the foreground capturing a solo female interviewee sitting in a chair with a plant next to her against a white farm style wall. Lighting equipment is also shown in the photograph. Image 5: Action shot of Heather jumping, wearing a black one piece, legs extended in front of her as she looks down over a bent elbow Image 6: Headshot of Heather (female, long brown hair, green eyes and freckles) facing the side, looking at camera, one arm by her head. Image 7: Heather is in a deep side lunge with her extended foot flexed. Her arms are bent at the elbows as she looks to the side.