Press

“Monday night’s crop of dance companies are some of the area’s finest. Bill Evans Dance Company, Geomantics, BIODANCE and Bush Mango Drum and Dance all performed… BIODANCE impressed me the most: To “On the Surface,” some of the area’s top modern dancers moved in playful and jittery ways to piano works by Mozart. The music and the dance were in opposition; the underlying nervousness to the very gentile music seemed to be a statement about the stress we all experience underneath, despite what may be ‘on the surface.”
Anna Reguero, (DemocratandChronicle.com, 2010)

“Visually stunning…”
City Newspaper (Rochester, NY, 2006)

“The multi-media piece ‘EXCESS’ blends the best facets of modern dance, film and sound… I immediately started considering what I own that I don’t actually need.”
City Newspaper (Rochester, NY, 2006)

“With well-performed spoken and physical comedy and a healthy dose of sarcasm, Guzzle! brings the audience face to face with the United States’ greedy desire for oil. In several sections, Pfohl Smith shows her talent for weaving together video, text, sound and movement as she pointedly addresses political/environmental issues and exposes hypocrisies in today’s consumer driven world… (a) powerful piece of theatrical activism.”
Anne Burnidge, MFA (Review of Hobart and William Smith Colleges Dance Concert, 2008)

“ …unpredictability and fierceness…sinuous athleticism and clarity of intention in every moment…visually unpredictable…impressive…challenging our senses.”
Donna Davenport, Ed.D. (Review of Rochester Contemporary Dance Collective at Hochstein School of Music, 2008)

“Particularly notable was Missy Pfohl Smith, intrepid and unquenchable…”
The Star-Ledger (NJ, 1998)

“Bull is full of tension and rhetoric… For a small person (Pfohl Smith) manipulates her space and commands attention as you try to unravel her frustration suggested by tight sequencing of movements that go from order to disorder. She uses her body as a metaphor for confusion.”
Jeanne Fornarola (Review of Rochester Contemporary Dance Collective at Bush Mango Drum and Dance, 2007)

“In ‘Absent Presence,’ … Missy Pfohl Smith created a watery sensation as the duo dove and swam through the air. Their bodies intertwined and then separated, with one dancer holding the other and lifting them off the floor in a cradling gesture before the other would spring loose. The wordless exploration of dualities (freedom and intimacy, weakness and strength, closeness and conflict) was played out in recondite gestures and movements.”
The Martha’s Vineyard Times (MA, 2004)

“Pfohl was especially strong and graceful.”
The Villager (NYC, 1993)

“This striking opening moment introduces a complex relationship revealed by seamless partnering and subtle power shifts between the dancers…Every body part is alive with expression; hips, torsos, backs, and shoulders seem to be electrified with the tension created by the uncertainty of the partnership… There is a fabulous physical connection between these two professional dancers. Pfohl Smith’s choreographic flair for dramatic subtlety and cynicism/realism are highlighted in this piece…Absent Presence is a very fitting title for this work. With her individual sense of phrasing and unique partnering skills, Pfohl Smith has created a subtle, yet haunting portrait of a relationship or life condition that is all too present in today’s world.”
Anne Burnidge, MFA (Review of Hobart and William Smith Colleges Dance Concert, 2008)

“The yearning desire to possess another person appears in ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ … (where) Shukis smothers a delicately nuanced Pfohl Smith with affection.”
The Star-Ledger (NJ, 2004)

“This piece solidifies for me Pfohl Smith’s talent for making work that challenges and provokes while at the same time revealing situations, characters, and/or emotions that are universally understandable (at least from a western perspective). There is no clear narrative to Bull, but the person on stage is communicating through the varying tension in her limbs and torso, through her very personal gestures, through the sometimes blank sometimes penetrating gaze that she occasionally directs toward the audience, and through the various abstracted parts of her life (internal and external) that she exposes. I kinesthetically feel/understand this person. Pfohl Smith’s ability to reveal humanity through movement allows me to experience this dance on a cellular level. This is my favorite way to participate in dance—not just to watch passively, but to absorb the work with my whole body/mind.”
Anne Burnidge, MFA (Review of Hobart and William Smith Colleges Dance Concert, 2008)

“Pfohl Smith danced a lament, her body undulating and then dropping to the floor, where she stretched and shuddered, always with one bare foot twisted around her other leg.”
Metroland (Albany, NY, 2001)

“…provided a stunning showcase for the dancers of Randy James Dance Works including a wonderfully spirited Missy Pfohl Smith.”
The Home News & Review (NJ, 1998)

“The women, particularly Missy Pfohl Smith, demonstrated great strength & athleticism, & the whole company was called upon by James’ choreography to go with lightning speed from slow controlled movements to wild whirling turns”
Recorder Newspapers (NJ, 2000)