Dudley Williams still dancing at 65

Jet, Jan 26, 2004

Dudley Williams believes that you are as young as you feel. That's why he is still dancing professionally at the age of 65.

Williams, noted dancer with the Alvin Alley American Dance Theater, is the company's oldest member.

He recognizes that most dancers stop performing by the time they hit 30. But that has never mattered to him. He believes that age is nothing but a number.

"I feel wonderful," he exclaims. "I feel like I am 30 years old. I don't think I am 65 and it is time for me to stop. I don't think I am 65 at all. I think there must be a mistake on my birth certificate," he laughs. "I just don't think about age."

Whenever he takes center stage, the audience is 'always amazed that he moves so well and looks so good. He is just as graceful and agile as the younger dancers in the company.

"I don't do anything special to stay fit. I don't take vitamins. I don't lift weights," says Williams who is 5 foot-8 and weighs 130 pounds. "I've been the same weight all through my career and life. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want."

The veteran dancer still performs front and center in several of Alley's signature numbers including the popular, Revelations and Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.

Williams joined the Alley company in 1964. He graduated from the High School of the Performing Arts and attended The Juilliard School and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School. He has performed with the companies of' Martha Graham, Donald McKayle and Talley Beatty.

He also dances with the quartet, Paradigm, which includes fellow veteran dancers Carmen de Lavallade, Gus Solomons Jr., and Hope Clark. The group has toured widely and has won much acclaim.

He also teaches dance at The Alley School in New York City and often coaches the younger dancers in the company. He has taught the younger dancers some of the signature numbers he used to perform including Donny Hathaway's A Song For You. "I coach them. I still can do it, but now I want them to get acclaim from those pieces. I got the reviews for them all these years but now it is time for someone else."

He teaches the young dancers "how your body tells the story instead of your arms and your legs. Your body is your instrument, your arms and legs are just there to extend what your body wants to say. It has to come from the center of your body."

Williams, who turns 66 in August, has no plans of slowing down. "I have no plans to stop. I think God has given me a gift. If I don't use it, shame on me. I think I will know when the time has come to end. And the time is definitely not right now. Definitely not right now."