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AAADT performs "Love Stories."
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The Brooklyn native, who's been dancing for nearly 30 years, received her training at noted performing arts schools in New York City. Ms. Smallwood's admiration for Judith Jamison from a young age led her to fervently pursue a spot with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. After a few summers of study at the Ailey School, she became a member of Ailey II, the second company, in 1993 and won a position in the main company two years later. Contributor Jennifer Dunning spoke with the dancer about her life on and off the stage.
GREAT PERFORMANCES: It started with a school I used to go to in Bedford-Stuyvesant, [Brooklyn], founded by my parents and other parents in the community, and there was an African dance class. One of Chuck Davis' [African dance specialist] dancers was my first dance teacher. It was part of the curriculum. I was about three years old, but even [then], I was extremely serious about it. My mother had me in just about everything: track and field, tennis, piano, learned how to play the recorder. ... But dance was the thing that just blew my mind.
After that I went to the neighborhood schools, La Guardia High School, Graham [Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance], [and] Jubilation [Jubilation Dance Company]. I auditioned actually when I was a junior for the summer program [at AAADT], but because it was PSAT time and there were a lot of things going on ... my mother said I couldn't go. I also auditioned for the Dance Theatre of Harlem summer program and made it into that, but my mother said I couldn't go. It was not because she wasn't proud of me. It was because I literally had too many projects, so I had to wait.
I went to college, North Carolina School of the Arts, and during the summers ... I began to go to Alvin Ailey [School, on full scholarship]. I knew already that I wanted to dance there, because in college my senior project was Judith Jamison [AAADT former principal dancer and current artistic director] and her whole life. I had learned the second section of "Cry" on my own from a videotape, not in [the] hopes that I would do it, but it was just part of my project. You had to learn a piece of choreography from whomever you were studying. I turned it into this huge book, this scrapbook that I gave to Judi. I can't remember what year it was, but I think I was in the second company [Ailey II] at the time. It had pictures of her that I had been collecting for years. It was a wonderful scrapbook of her life in pictures. ... And one day I was doing my work study and I asked her to sign it. ... Before I even really knew all the wonderful opportunities at the Alvin Ailey organization and all the wonderful things they did in the community and for dancers, I wanted to be where Judith Jamison was because I really respected her craft and how she developed it and how she looked very much like me.
GP: Had you expected to join Ailey II, AAADT's second company?
DAS: After being at the school for the third summer, Sylvia Waters [director of Ailey II] asked me to join. ... I really just wanted to go to the first company. I hadn't really heard of the second company. ... Judith Jamison wasn't there. I was like, okay, well, if this is the way you get there, then this is the path I'm going to take. And in retrospect, I'm so happy that I went there because there is where I learned, and learned how to respect Alvin Ailey's ballets and his stories. Sylvia Waters was truly instrumental in making me understand the importance of his ballets. Not just that they were just dances that we did. She really helped me to hone in on my talent and not have to fight for everything. ... So to this day she's like a mother, another mother. I joined the second company in '93. I was there for two years.
Interview by Jennifer Dunning for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in May 2006. (Photos: Nick Ruechel [banner], courtesy Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Paul Kolnik-Thirteen/WNET [top and middle left].)
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