Contributor
One of the few amputee dancers currently performing in Canada, Lawrence Shapiro is a validated Deaf and Disability Artist with the Canada Council and a multi-grant recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s Deaf and Disability Arts Projects program. His 2016 piece Discovering performed at the Daniels Spectrum in Toronto was the first dance production in Canada to feature an above-knee amputee in a leading role. Additional career highlights include performances with the Vienna International Dance Festival in 2016, the disability strand of the Hammersmith & Fullham Arts Festival in London, UK in 2018 and the execution of public installation pieces facilitated through Heidi Latsky Dance of New York City. Shapiro’s presentation of the role of the amputee in integrated dance has been delivered to a variety of arts events most recently last year at the University of Toronto’s Festival of Original Theatre. He is currently preparing to lead Toronto’s first ever disability-led integrated dance company.