China Smith
Moving Mountains Through Movement
“People underestimate the power of dance,” declares China Smith, a fire blazing behind her sharp brown eyes. Smith lives and breathes dance, bringing its boundless benefits to the people of Austin. As founder and artistic director of Ballet Afrique, Smith has been able to fuse her love of ballet, modern and African dance to provide a space to express, release and unite as a community. Above all, Smith’s company centers on the children she teaches, the students she empowers and the community she has cultivated through Ballet Afrique.
“OK, chickadees!” yells Smith in her energetically high-pitch voice. Her 8- to 11-year-olds are practicing modern dance, their individuality shining through. However, it is the African dance class that follows, where the students seem to awaken, coming alive with expressively mesmerizing movement. Many moms line the walls, watching their children, some dancing along to the African beat. During a break, a larger girl holds her leg up straight above her head. The crowd around her goes wild, with one exclaiming, “She’s so lucky!”
A mom across the room eyes a student’s snack of grapes and oranges. She points to it and tells her daughter, “Healthy! See, that’s what you’re going to be eating instead of french fries.”
Through Ballet Afrique, Smith transcends the boundaries of race, gender and class, and the confines of physical and mental challenges. For the child who may not have the typical dancer physique, Smith aims to build self-confidence to prove that not only can she dance, she can do anything and go anywhere. Beyond body image, Smith shapes self-confidence and understanding among her students through education, appreciation and awareness of different cultures, experiences and backgrounds.
“With dance, you’re so vulnerable,” she says. “It’s a way for people to understand my story. Every human needs a platform to tell their story and share our experiences.”
At the foundational level, dance is the glue that seals the Ballet Afrique community together. As the company’s fearless director, Smith recalls dance being an integral part of her life, interwoven between hardship and her desire to lead from a very young age.
“When I was little, my family would have parties. There would be a circle in the middle of the living room and people would pick up buckets, cans, spoons,” she describes as she dances in her chair, imitating her best banging-on-a-pot rendition.
Smith’s storytelling is as much verbal as it is physical, as she paints a picture of the path she has taken to arrive at her destination through words mingled with movement. Smith has always been exposed to the power of dance as a means to express individuality and bring people together. In addition to family gatherings that were centered on dance and music, Smith would create entire musicals and shows as a child, composing original scores and choreography.
“My dad had this great album collection, and because I was home by myself, I would play this music. … I thought if I could share this with people, it would change their lives,” she remembers.
Growing up in East Austin, Smith was born to be an entrepreneur, beginning a newsletter at her elementary school, starting the GA (Girls Association), which fed homeless cats in her neighborhood in exchange for a Saturday breakfast at one of her girlfriend’s houses, and serving as student council president and the president of future educators in high school.
Spending her high-school years at Austin High School, Smith saw some of the terrible situations many of her classmates found themselves in, whether it was living in poverty, experiencing violence or a lack of support from their families and educators. In order to get out of these situations and in to college, a huge emphasis was placed on athletics, not only for Smith, but also for many in the African-American community.
“It’s sad when you tell a child that your way in to college is not just your mind; that the only way you’re going to get there is to be some kind of athletic superstar,” she says. So when she broke her ankle her senior year, she had to re-think her sports career, thrilled at the opportunity to be freed from the expectation of athletic greatness.
While at the University of Texas at Austin, Smith began studying dance. She found the Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance Company, studying under Artistic Director Ana María Tekina-eirú Maynard, who gave Smith an opportunity to travel to the Caribbean to train in dance. Once she returned, she took classes from local modern dance legend Katherine Dunn Hamrick.
“[Hamrick] opened my mind to the possibilities of dance. … It blew my mind with how you could use space and time, and there were levels and dimensions to it. I fell in love,” Smith gushes.
With her fire ignited, Smith studied wherever and whenever she could, her background mainly focused in Afro-Latin and Folk dance, and she trained with renowned Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Alvin Ailey, Milton Myers, Boyd Vance and other incredible artists from throughout the world, taking an untraditional route to becoming a well-rounded instructor. Now, after more than 15 years of teaching dance, Smith evokes her transition to focus on African culture.
“The more I learned about [African culture], the more I wanted to know about it,” she explains.
Beginning her teaching career in schools throughout Austin, Smith worked in predominantly black schools, which reinforced her desire to incorporate African culture with dance.
“I decided to have this project that tracked the African diaspora through America. … I started with the question to my students, ‘When I say “black,” what comes to your mind?’ ” she explains. The response was overwhelming, as negative words flew out, “stupid” and “ignorant” among them. “It’s so heartbreaking. How can you exist in the world if that’s what you think of yourself? How can you appreciate anyone else’s culture when you don’t know about yourself?”
These are the seeds from which Ballet Afrique was sown. Smith wanted to create a place to appreciate and admire African culture to establish more of a positive representation of African-Americans away from the historical depiction: a history of slavery, discrimination, exclusion and violence. After teaching in schools for 10 years, Smith took an opportunity to pursue her passion and make Ballet Afrique a reality, teaching and presenting dance her way. The company started out with one (yes, just one) large community dance class, in which people would gather at her home or in a library.
Now in a space within Highland Mall, Ballet Afrique has two professional dance companies and is able to offer preschool, elementary, middle school, high school and adult classes in ballet, modern, jazz, tap and African throughout the week. Combining these dance forms allows students of Ballet Afrique to articulate the human condition and spirit through dance, and nurture the artist within while going beyond race, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds.
In its sixth year, Ballet Afrique has provided dance lessons and performance opportunities to hundreds of families, aiming to explore cultural connection, self-confidence and artistic expression to create understanding, awareness and appreciation for not only African culture, but other forms of dance that stem from a variety of cultures throughout the world.
“I don’t look at us as a dance company; it’s an experience. It’s human condition and being able to express that,” Smith says. “You don’t see color and social class in art; you just see the person and who they are. “A baby can only do so many things. They cry, they sleep, they eat, they laugh and they dance. Before my daughter could talk, she would hear music and start moving her body. That is one of the first things we do in life. Before we even walk, we are dancing. That is so incredible. If we can understand that about us as human beings, if more people would dance, it would solve a lot,” she says.
In addition to articulating the human condition, Ballet Afrique reaches families who typically do not have access to the arts, whether that boundary is financial, language-based, physical or mental. It teaches children to create something out of nothing, to use their bodies to create stories, feelings and liberation.
“African dance is all about release. Ballet is all about the meditation and stillness,” Smith explains about her multi-faceted teaching and the benefits of each style to a child.
Fitness, health and wellness play a major role in Smith’s life and how she runs Ballet Afrique. Smith started to educate her students about making healthy choices, finding that she needed to take a look at the families as well. While she was hounding her students about needing lots of water, vegetables and protein, she discovered they were going home and those options would not be in their refrigerators.
“Most of my families don’t cook. They eat fast food every single night. And then [the students] are dancing so hard at practice—they’re 8, 6—and their little bodies just cannot survive. A lot of my moms have unhealthy lifestyles. They just do. As a mom, we sort of put ourselves on the back burner,” Smith explains.
“Being a mom is hard. It’s the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life. Your kids can drive you crazy. I want to make sure that those kids have a healthy environment. That means they’re eating healthy, that their parents feel good about themselves and they have a release, as opposed to letting it out on their kids—whether it’s physical or verbal. Both of those are damaging to children.”
Smith meets regularly with her dance moms, implementing a diet and exercise plan to promote feeling good to make life more manageable. She is shifting the unhealthy normalcies for her families, and providing opportunity and awareness of how to eat healthy and exercise without breaking the bank. This desire to improve the lives of the community of Ballet Afrique stems from Smith’s overwhelming passion for children, clearly evident with each vehement breath she takes.
“I’m the kind of person who would move heaven and earth for a child,” she says. “I tell [my students], ‘If you’re ever in a situation, I don’t care what it is, call me and I will be there.’ Every show I do, if there is a situation at home I know about, I talk about it and put it out there, make the parents see it,” she says, gathering support and bringing attention to issues facing the Ballet Afrique family. “If you ever want to know what’s going on in a child’s life, get them in a dance class or an art class. They will dance about it, they will write about it and they will draw about it,” she says, emphasizing the influence the arts can have on a child.
Not only is it a way to express your innermost feelings, Smith is also using dance to provide opportunities to students who might not have them otherwise.
“I am a master planner,” Smith says.
She utilizes the resources around her and shows by example, working out trades so her students can train with the best instructors, and asking for help when it’s needed. By doing so, she has been able to take students out of state to train, giving them endless opportunities, Smith’s main goal for her students.
Most recently, Smith gave her Umoja Dance Company students the opportunity to produce their own show, which they had to choreograph and plan from scratch. This process allowed them to learn how to work with a theater for lighting and sound, raise money to pay for the space, to essentially learn all aspects of the performance business.
This project was recently featured in a documentary on KLRU, the local PBS affiliate, as part of their Arts in Context series. A Reason to Dance highlighted Smith, as well the students who inspire her to do what she does day in and day out. As the owner of Ballet Afrique, Smith serves as business administrator, brand manager, accountant, choreographer and support system.
“The whole inspiration and driving force behind this are the kids. They think I’m a hero. No. They are my heroes,” she affirms.
With all this wonderful outpour of Smith’s time and energy, and the recent successes of being featured on KLRU—not to mention an article in O, The Oprah Magazine—it’s surprising to hear that Ballet Afrique is in trouble. Because the school has been operating out of the mall, which was recently bought by Austin Community College, the future of Ballet Afrique is unclear. Smith does not want to have to go back to teaching in the schools, having worked hard to create this space and community, and support students past and present.
“I love being at the mall. People can find me there,” she says about being available to students to catch up, offer advice or just talk.
The plans ACC has for the space are unclear. There are plans to turn it in to commercial spaces mixed in with shopping spots, operating as a multi-use building. Ballet Afrique could get the boot in the next two to three years.
“A great success story for our company would be making this transition to our own space. There’s great potential,” she says, explaining the blueprint design. It is only a matter of finding the right funding and right building to make the transition. “I’m missing that person or company to say, ‘We want to back you,’ ” she says.
With the prospect of a new building in the works, Smith is continuing to develop and grow her company. Her next projects include creating a boys scholarship program to encourage more males in her classes, as well as starting an orchestra made up entirely of African instruments.
“China is very headstrong. If she wants to do something, she’s going to do it,” says Vanessa Williams, a Ballet Afrique mom, makeup artist and friend to Smith. While Smith continues to push her company to the next level, her students and parents have found an invaluable resource that hopefully will not be going anywhere anytime soon.
She’s an advocate for her students, showing them through her own experiences that you don’t quit when you want something, and when someone tells you that you can’t do something, to challenge and fight on. Before every class, Smith huddles around with her students to offer insight, education and encouragement so that no matter what they are going through, they have a place to come together, to release, to learn, to dance.
Afrique Naturals
In true entrepreneurial fashion, there’s never only one business. In addition to Ballet Afrique, China Smith has a natural beauty line made specifically with African- American skin and hair type in mind. Fed up with the harsh chemicals contained in most beauty products and the effects they were having on her skin, Smith began experimenting with natural products and homemade remedies about three years ago, which prompted her to make her own hair and skincare products after seeing how great they made her skin feel and look.
“The whole point of the line is to introduce people to natural products and promote natural, healthy care of their skin and body,” Smith says.
Another major focus of Afrique Naturals falls in line with one of Ballet Afrique’s efforts: to promote self-confidence, which oftentimes starts with loving the skin and body you are in.
“I want little girls to feel pretty in their skin…to appreciate who they are and what they have,” she says. Utilizing raw African black soap, coconut oil and other natural ingredients, Smith’s line is not just for little girls, producing scrubs, creams designed for curly hair and moisturizers. From younger, feminine scents like cotton candy to classic, versatile scents like peppermint, Smith continues to impress with one entrepreneurial endeavor at a time.
Afrique Naturals products are available at Black Butterfly Bath & Body, 811 E. 13th St., 512.673.3126.
Music to Live By
My Father’s Albums
Choreographing and directing from a young age, China Smith says these albums shaped her childhood, that they fueled her desire to create other worlds through music.
When in Doubt … … Dance it Out!
It wouldn’t be a Ballet Afrique class without these two influential artists, China Smith’s daily dance inspiration:
- Zap Mama
- Erykah Badu
Styling by Ashley Hargrove, dtkaustinstyling.com. Photos by Dwayne Hills. Hair by Tiffany Nicole, styleseat.com/tiffanynicole. Makeup by Vanessa Williams, facebook.com/EssentialBeautyMUA. Shot on location at Ballet Afrique, balletafriqueaustin.org. Dance outfit provided and designed by Haja Scott, Toombas Jeans & Denim Wear, 512.626.7764, toombas.net.
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