Detroit Metropolitan Dance Artistic Director, Stephanie Pizzo, joined the company as a founding member in 1991. At various points in her dance career with DMD, she served as Resident Choreographer, Associate Artistic Director, and Co-Artistic Director. Ms. Pizzo now leads the company into her 7th season as Artistic Director. She focuses on collaborating with the highest quality national and international artists and creating strong ties within the metro Detroit community through the art of dance. Her dance for film work, The Five Tangos, inspired by the music of Astor Piazzolla and created in collaboration with the Detroit Institute of Art and Zazu Creative Studio, was selected as the winner of BEST EXPERIMENTAL film, 2022 Dancecentric Film Festival (Florida); semi-finalist, 2022 Inspired Dance Film Festival (Australia); and featured online in Dance Magazine’s “Friday Film Break.”

Ms. Pizzo also believes in educational programming and youth mentorship as key tools to develop community connection. She works to use the art of contemporary dance both as a means to present beautiful, athletic, and engaging repertory and as a vehicle to reflect on and explore issues of social significance. She has set her choreography at Illinois State University, Texas A & M University, Texas Christian University and Wesleyan University, along with having staged numerous works by Laurie Eisenhower on companies and universities throughout the United States. Her work has been presented in Tel Aviv as part of Detroit Metropolitan Dance’s production of The Light Show, at international dance festivals in Poland, and the Inside/Out Stage at Jacob’s Pillow. A native of Clinton Township, Michigan, Ms. Pizzo holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dance from Oakland University. In 2009, she received a Distinguished Alumni or “MaTilDa” award from the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance. She served as a special lecturer in dance at Oakland University for 12 years.

Ms. Chirio-Humenay graduated with a BA in Dance from Oakland University and joined DMD as a company dancer in 2012. From 2012-2020, she had the pleasure of touring, teaching, and performing with DMD. In 2018, through DMD’s Beyond the Stage Initiative, she was promoted to Company Manager and currently serves as DMD’s Director of Operations. Wearing several hats within the organization, Ms. Chirio-Humenay teaches at The School of DMD and directs several of the projects and programming DMD offers including the annual intensives: NewDANCEfest, U.P.rootEDD, and the DMD Winter Intensive. She is responsible for national booking and coordination of in-studio workshops, known as The DMD Experience, as well as educational and choreographic residency programs for school systems from elementary to college level. Ms. Chirio-Humenay also manages DMD’s EducatEDD programs which provide high quality educational materials and resources from knowledgeable and experienced professionals to the public and the dance community. A few of these programs include DMD’s monthly Pro-Tips, High School Dance Table Talks, An Insider’s Guide to Contemporary Dance online course, and DMD’s annual “See and Be Seen” event. 

Andrew Cribbett, originally from Thomasboro, Illinois, received a full scholarship to The Washington Ballet in Washington D.C. He then attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts to finish his senior year of high school. He joined Detroit Metropolitan Dance in 2011 and retired as a company dancer and Rehearsal Director in 2021. While dancing with the company, Mr. Cribbett toured nationally and internationally both teaching and performing in venues as far as Tel Aviv, Israel. He also had the great pleasure of performing original works by Nicolo Fonte, Gina Patterson, Darrell Grand Moutrie, Edgar Zendejas, Joshua Peugh, Ron De Jesus, among many others. His choreography has received recognition for Top 12 placement at YAGP for solos, small groups, and ensembles. Over the years, Mr. Cribbett has taught and choreographed for several local studios including The School of Detroit Metropolitan Dance and also trains elite level figure skaters in Junior Ice Dance. He is also pursuing a degree in Nursing concurrent with his role of Assistant Artistic Director. 

Christa Smutek is the Artistic Director of Artistic Edge Dance Centre, Director of The Collective Movement, and Founder of her project based dance company, Smutek Dance.  Christa studied at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and received her B.S. in Movement Science from the School of Kinesiology graduating with distinction and University Honors.  Christa continued on to perform professionally with various companies throughout the midwest and has been teaching and choreographing for the past 16 years.  Her choreography has been showcased at numerous festivals and events including Spring To Dance, Indiana Dance Festival, Columbus Arts Festival, RADFest Midwest, and Dance Canvas.  Christa established Smutek Dance in 2019.  They have performed at WhiteWave SoloDuo Festival, CDCFest Orlando, World of Dance, Dumbo Dance, and Detroit Dance City Festival where she was the Best Choreography winner 2021.  Her film, Unchained, was awarded Festival Favorite, Newbie Filmmaker, in Opine Dance Film Festival 2020.  She has also presented films at Screendance International, Dancentric, and Cinedanza Italy.

Christa was honored to be selected for the Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship 2023 at Jacob’s Pillow, under the direction of Risa Steinberg and Dianne McIntyre.  She recently completed her residency with Western Michigan University after winning their National Choreography Competition 2024.  She was also the winner of the International Dance Exchange Award at Detroit Dance City Festival 2024 and has been invited to present work in Daejeon, South Korea in 2025.  Christa continues to set award winning competitive dance pieces as well as teach masterclasses across the country.  She is the proud mother of Eli Smutek, born January 27, 2018.

SAMANTHA SHELTON received her professional training from the Joffrey Ballet in New York and in Michigan with Rose Marie Floyd. She also studied in London with Anita Young (Royal Ballet) and at the Cecchetti International program in England. Most recently, she was appointed to the American Ballet Theatre Board of Examiners which involves traveling to various schools across the nation to examine for the ABT NTC and teach master classes. She has set classical repertoire and choreographed for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensives in Tampa, at the University of South Florida; Austin, at the University of Texas-Austin; Tuscaloosa, at the University of Alabama; and Detroit, at the Detroit Opera House. She has also choreographed for YAGP, university, and college programs throughout the USA and Taiwan. She has been invited to guest teach at Houston Ballet and Duke University, as part of the partnership between the ABT Studio Company and Duke University. 

For the past twenty years, she has been on the ballet faculty for American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive, formerly directed by Melissa Allen Bowman and currently directed by Kate Lydon, setting ABT repertoire and choreographing new ballets for the final performances.

She has also traveled the country as an adjudicator for the ABT National Audition Tour, selecting dancers for training programs in New York, Texas, California, Florida and Alabama. Samantha taught at the ABT programs at the University of South Florida, directed by Julie Bravata; University of Alabama, directed by Carla Stallings; University of Texas-Austin, directed by Wes Chapman, and the Detroit Opera House/Wayne State University, directed by Alaine Haubert. She has choreographed and taught for the professional ballet programs at Houston Ballet, Walnut Hill School in Boston, Ballet Tennessee, Missouri Contemporary Ballet, Duke University, and Interlochen Arts Academy and taught company class for Detroit Metropolitan Dance, Complexions, Ballet Hispanico and Grand Rapids Ballet. Samantha received her first professional offer at 17, and has performed extensively in both classical and contemporary ballets. Classical roles include the Grand Pas from Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, Giselle and Raymonda. In her guest artist performances, she has partnered with Craig Salstein (of ABT), Arch Higgins (New York City Ballet) and Christopher Stowell (San Francisco Ballet) among many others. 

Samantha holds an M.F.A in Dance from the University of Michigan, where she was awarded a Rackham Thesis grant, and a B.A. in Political Science also from the University of Michigan. She has also done graduate work at New York University in Performing Arts Administration with internships in development, PR and marketing at Carnegie Hall and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. 

For six years, she served on the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance Alumni Society Board of Governors and in May 2012 spent three weeks in Taiwan, teaching and presenting a piece of choreography for Tainan University. She has also held professorships at several colleges and universities, including Wayne State University, Alma College, Grand Valley State University and most recently as an associate professor at Belhaven University in Jackson, MS. She is certified through the American Ballet Theatre National Curriculum Training Program and has co-taught the ABT NTC with Harriet Clark, at the Detroit Opera House.