Spread the Joy Tour,

Imani Smith

Imani Joy is the CEO and founder of Joyous Evolution Dance Company. Imani has always dreamt of owning her own dance company and always knew it would happen, but not as soon as it did. When she was forced to take a brief break from her studies at the Pennsylvania State University, she decided to just go for it. Instead of seeing that as a setback she took advantage of being able to touch the youth in her hometown, which has been a passion of hers for many years. Imani reached a rough patch in her life during high school when her mom suffered an illness. This is when she developed the passion for touching the youth and letting them know that there’s someone out there going through the same thing as them.

Imani started to notice a slip in the appreciation of the art of dance in society as the years passed by and hopes to get back to the appreciation of dance in pure form. She has studied dance since the age of 3 and has a deep passion for the art form. She has performed on numerous platforms throughout her life. These include; musical theatre, dance theatre, majorette dancing, praise dancing, and many more. Imani has many dance inspirations including, Judith Jamison and Debbie Allen; but her number 1 dance inspiration is her aunt Adrien Crutch, who exposed her to the art of dance at a very young age.

Imani knew that she wanted to be an entrepreneur at 16 when she got her first job.  She said that she instantly realized she had no desire to work for “the man” the rest of her life. Many jobs later, she is now following her dreams to own her own dance company. She will complete her studies at the Pennsylvania State University with a B.A in Broadcast Journalism.