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AAADT performs "Love Stories."
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GP: Talk about the new Alvin Ailey headquarters. Were you all taken there during construction?
DAS: Oh, yes. You could go if you wanted to, maybe seven of us went. We'd go several times. I would go look at the different stages. Some of us were pulled in to help pick the dance floors. We had to wear hard hats. It was fun. To see [it] going up and then see the finished product, it was amazing.
GP: Did it make you all feel more professional, working in those surroundings? Or didn't it matter?
DAS: It mattered to me. I remember the first day, walking up to the studio where we had class. I think we were all on vacation when they opened the building. It was the first day, having warm-up class in the studio. And I swear I was standing at the barre looking outside at the bodega and thinking, I feel like a dancer. I feel so validated. I feel like my existence is important. We have a home. We have a place.
That was a great feeling, to walk in and say, okay, I'm the first one that had this locker. Years from now, when I'm 90, I'll come back, bring my grandchildren, and be like, "This was your grandmother's locker. She was standing right at this barre, in the best building ever."
GP: What would you say if a young kid came to you today, maybe not one that had necessarily had a lot of dance training, and asked you if they should be a dancer, what they should do to be one, what they should expect?
DAS: I mentor a lot of young girls. Actually, I'm trying to start a little mentoring group. I tell them, "Yes, you can be a dancer," but I don't lie to them. I tell them it's a lot of work. You have to choose what role in the dance world that you want ... because a lot of dancers come out of wherever they are in their careers a little bitter because they haven't achieved what they wanted to achieve. And I believe that's their fault because they haven't decided what they want to achieve. They left it up to the bosses, to the industry, to the artistic directors, to the choreographers, to decide for them how far and where they were going to go in their careers.
I understand that you're made for certain roles. That's a given. You have to be honest with yourself. I believe that, totally. Being honest with yourself and sometimes brutally honest. You're made for certain things and you're not made for other things. But if you're honest with yourself first, nothing anyone can tell you will surprise you or disappoint you, or make you sad. You have to decide where you want to be. What you want to do. And when you do all of that, you are in control.
God is in control ultimately. But you are in control of how people see you, and how people will perceive you and handle you and respect you. All those things. It's a lot to tell a young person, but I do try to convey that to them all the time. And I also tell them to waste no talent. Waste nothing. Waste no skills that God has left you with. So if you have a skill to be a dancer, get up off your butt and go for it.
GP: If you had one piece that you would like people to see you in, what would it be?
DAS: Oh, god! I don't know.
GP: Not "Cry"?
DAS: I'm still nervous about "Cry" [Jamison's signature solo created by Alvin Ailey]. I feel like it's not mine, and plus I respect Judith Jamison so much. That is her creation. All I can do is be true to what Judith has done to it, be true to his choreography, be true to the women that it is named for. It's a responsibility.
I would like someone to come in and totally see all the gifts that I have and say, "You know what? The world will not be right without a ballet made just for her!" It may never happen. I have great people to live up to, so I got a lot of work to do before that can even happen.
Interview by Jennifer Dunning for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in May 2006. (Photos: Nick Ruechel [banner] and Andrew Eccles [middle left], courtesy Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Paul Kolnik-Thirteen/WNET [top left].)
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