Blending art and science gives dancer a lift
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Attack Theatre's Ashley Williams with Jeff Davis. -
Ashley Williams is a full-time dancer with Attack Theatre and a part-time medical researcher with UPMC.
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When Ashley Williams reports to work as a medical researcher, she feels on top of the world. It certainly helps that she's on the 16th floor of the University of Pittsburgh's Basic Science Tower on Cardiac Hill.
"Sometimes when I come up in the morning, I'm above the clouds and all I can see is the top of the Cathedral of Learning," says the petite brunette. "It's really beautiful."
That floating feeling is a familiar one to Ms. Williams, because she is also a full-time professional dancer with Attack Theatre. That produces a day that typically begins at 7:30 at her UPMC job. At noon, she changes her clothes, jumps in her car and grabs something to eat as she heads across the city to the Attack studios in the Strip District. Her dance rehearsals begin at 12:30 and end at 7:30 p.m.
A 12-hour day would be impressive for anyone. But Ms. Williams was always dedicated to the delicate balance of her left and right brain, even as a child in Colorado.
She grew up in Steamboat Springs with a forest for her backyard, a mountain playground that left her and her siblings decidedly fit. Then she discovered Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp, just three miles from her house. Begun in 1913, it is America's oldest continuously operating performing arts school and camp, with a roster of distinguished alumni.
There, the athletic youngster relished studying ballet, jazz, modern and equestrian, often commuting to her classes by horse. Though she remained a dancer through high school, she never considered dance as a career. The intellectually agile young woman turned down offers from Stanford, Rice and Dartmouth for a full scholarship at the University of Colorado.
You see, she wanted to be an astronaut. But besides a great aerospace engineering program, Colorado also provided her an excellent dance program. This astronaut-in-the-making didn't want to wait to soar above the Earth.
So she became a double major, which meant "dancing all the time," mainly at Boulder Ballet and No Name Dance Company. Still, this quantitative mind was much more interested in math and science as a career.
When graduate school beckoned, she chose Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But with the push and pull going on in her brain, she deferred for a year to study at Rotterdam Dance Academy, one of Europe's leading professional institutes for contemporary dance.
First Published April 12, 2010 12:00 am
