Goodbye, school hello, company: Stacie Williams redefines herself as she transitions from student to Dance Theatre of Harlem apprentice - Young Dancer® - Interview

Dance Magazine, Nov, 2002 by Karyn D. Collins

THE SPRING 2002 ITINERARY FOR MOST HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS UNDOUBTEDLY READ: sweat about the future; prom; sweat more about the future; final exams; then graduation, and perhaps a split between a summer job and hanging out with friends. Then there was Stacie Williams's spring: sweat through dance classes, rehearsals, and appearances with Dance Theatre of Harlem's student company in New York; go to the senior prom back home at Schenley High School in Pittsburgh; successfully audition for the prestigious Dance Theatre of Harlem in Manhattan; graduate from high school. Then she followed all that up with a summer of rehearsals in New York for her first performance as a professional dancer, with DTH. * The 18-year-old's life promises even more hopping back and forth now. Williams began working with the company as an apprentice in July, preparing for a season that was to include several weeks in Europe. Just before she was to begin rehearsals, Williams was still trying to get used to the fact that she was no longer a student in the junior company--as she had been all last school year--but a member of the internationally renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem.

"It's hard to believe it. A year ago I was just coming in as a summer scholarship student," she said, a quiet smile growing as she talked about her achievement.

After spending the summer of 2001 dancing at DTH, Williams was asked to stay on as a student and student company member for the following school year. She decided to accept the offer even though it meant missing her senior year of high school back home. In New York, Williams attended the Professional Children's School but graduated with her high school class in Pittsburgh before starting her new job.

"It still hasn't sunk in that I'm in the company," Williams said. "Just taking class with them, you feel kind of scared because there are so many dancers that are wonderful. And you think, `Am I really supposed to be here?'"

That last statement reflects the qualities that the folks at DTH like most about Williams. She's humble, self-effacing, and unflinchingly hardworking. And though her parents expected her to go to college (she applied to and was accepted at several schools), Williams said choosing dance as a career was always her dream.

"I knew I wanted to dance but I wasn't sure if I wanted to try to be in a professional ballet company or if I wanted to be in college and dance later," she said, adding that she plans to take one or two college correspondence courses this year at the suggestion of her parents. "Then, when I saw Dance Theatre of Harlem perform, I thought `This is where I want to be.' It was everything about them--the way the dancers danced, the dances they perform, and the fact that it's a black company, because at [the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School], I was the only black person in my class."

Williams appears to be a young woman who takes nothing for granted, not even the kind of prodigious talent that made her stand out in a crowded class of fifty that included the school's most advanced students, as well as junior and senior company members. She admitted, with a shy smile, that showing herself off more onstage was something the company's cofounder and artistic director, Arthur Mitchell, asked her to work on.

"Mr. Mitchell wants me to be more aggressive," explained Williams. "He says I'm strong; I just need to present it more. Because I'm shy, very shy."

She laughed when told her shyness wasn't evident in class. "It's hard, but I make myself do it," she said. Plus, she added, doing an across-the-floor combination as many times as possible--with her group as well as another one--and performing every exercise as if onstage are just part of the fun. "I love that I can be someone else when I'm dancing and that I can express myself without words, because words don't come naturally to me--but movement does," she said. "I love just using my body and seeing how much I can do, how far I can stretch myself."

Laveen Naidu, director of the Dancing Through Barriers student ensemble, has watched Williams advance during the last year. "The ensemble is an amazing experience for a young dancer," he said. "It gives them an opportunity not only to learn and work in the style of ... the company, but also allows them to hone their performing skills and develop and maintain the discipline to perform anywhere at any time. Plus Stacie had [to deal with] school and the experience of living away from home." Naidu added, "I would tell her mother, `Let her fend for herself,' because she needed that."

Joining the company will require Williams to progress in other ways. "Now, as an apprentice, she's got a year to prove herself," said Naidu, "I always tell the ones who become apprentices, `In the school, you were protected. From here on out no one is going to be on your back about things like being in class, working up to your full ability.' With a professional company, you have to find those things for yourself."

Williams will have to learn the staples of the DTH repertoire, such as Geoffrey Holder's Dougla, South African Suite by Arthur Mitchell, August van Heerden, and Laveen Naidu, and George Balanchine's The Four Temperaments. And she will also have to grow accustomed to life on tour and the demands of being in an internationally renowned company.