By ALBERT AMATEAU | Lynn Shapiro, a dancer, choreographer, writer and longtime Soho resident, died Sat., Nov. 19, in Beth Israel Hospital at the age of 54.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, she began writing poetry in 1999 and won the Pushcart Prize with her poem “Sloan Kettering” in 2008.
She organized and led the Lynn Shapiro Dance Company in Soho. As a choreographer and dancer she won several awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
“She gave up dance after her daughter was born in 1999 and in recent years she concentrated on writing,” said her husband, Erik Friedlander, a cellist with whom she often collaborated. In addition to her prizewinning “Sloan Kettering” poem, others appeared in the publications “Rattle” and “Mudfish.” Part of her memoir, “Savage Love at Beth Israel,” was published last year in the literary journal “Fifth Wednesday,” and was nominated by a board of editors for a Pushcart Prize.
Lynn Mayson Shapiro was born in Washington, D.C., to David and Jane Shapiro and was raised in Cambridge, Mass. She attended Smith College and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from New York University.
In addition to her husband, her daughter, Ava, and her parents, of Cambridge, survive.
Greenwich Village Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
