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Her Story

In 2008, Carol Crawford Smith received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance. This honor will be presented on August 2nd by Rhee Gold Publishing, publisher of Dance Studio Life magazine at the Dance Life Teachers Conference at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, AZ.

Carol Crawford Smith is founder and artistic director of The Center of Dance in Blacksburg, VA. Through her dance school she provides intensive instruction, workshops, and programs of excellence in dance and related arts. Her professional experience in dance includes a ten-year career as a soloist with the internationally acclaimed Dance Theatre of Harlem.

The dance masters she has studied and worked with and whose works she performed include George Balanchine, Valerie Bettis w/Tennesee Williams, Alexandra Danilova, Agnes DeMille, Garth Fagan, Frederick Franklin, William Griffith, Geoffrey Holder, John McFall, Arthur Mitchell, Terry Orr for Eugene Loring, Domy Reiter-Soffer, Jerome Robbins, Karel Shook, John Taras, Glen Tetley, and Billy Wilson.

Crawford Smith has performed in numerous world class dance-theater productions including “Allegro Brillante” (Balanchine), “A Streetcar Named Desire’ (Bettis), Belé (Holder),” Billy the Kid” (Loring),” Concerto Borocco” (Balanchine), “Concerto in F” (Wilson), “Dougla” (Holder), “Firebird” (Taras), ”Fall River Legend” (DeMille), ” Footprints Dressed In Red” (Fagan), ”Four Temperaments” (Balanchine), ”Giselle” (Franklin after Coralli and Perrot), ”John Henry” (Mitchell), ” Paquita” (Danilova/Franklin after Petipa), ”Phoenix Arising” (Mitchell/Wilson), ”Rhythmetron” (Mitchell), ”Serenade” (Balanchine), and “Square Dance” (Balanchine).

 She has performed for dance enthusiasts throughout the United States, and as well as in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the former Soviet Union. Dignitaries she has performed before include Princess Diana at the London Coliseum, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Mayor Ed Koch at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Crawford Smith has served as Coordinators for the Black Cultural Center and for the Media Mentoring Program at Virginia Tech. As Coordinator for the Black Cultural Center, she founded and directed Ujima Dance Theatre. Crawford Smith choreographed and performed ”The Promise ” (Blacksburg Bicentennial Musical), ”Hard Time Blues” (Dumas Theatre), ”Carmen” (Opera Roanoke), ”Amahl and the Night Visitors” (Opera Roanoke), ”Travels” (Opera Roanoke), ” The Colored Museum” (Virginia Tech Theatre Arts), and appeared solo in” Flap! ” (Kilkelly with Virginia Tech Theatre Arts).

Crawford Smith founded The Center of Dance in August of 1994. As the Founder and Artistic Director, she has produced, directed, and choreographed over 200 community performances for the school including ”Stars and Strings, ” ”Dancing in OZ, ” ”Pinocchio, ” ”Degas Dancers, ” ”Earth and Sky”, and ”Stars and Strings II, ” as well as for the school’s resident company, UJIMA. In 1996, Crawford Smith and UJIMA performed, by invitation, at the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Crawford Smith has a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Studio Art from Marymount Manhattan College (Graduated Magna Cum Laude as Carol Ann Crawford) and a Master of Science in Human Development, with a concentration in Families and the Arts from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Crawford Smith has taught undergraduate courses at Marymount Manhattan College, the University of Hawaii - Hilo, and at Virginia Tech. As a visual artist, Crawford Smith creates CCDancer Designs©; greeting cards and art featuring The Huelanders© -People from the Land of Hue©, a world of color where people of all colors exist harmoniously in one colorful world©.

In February 2006, Crawford Smith and her sons were awarded a new home and renovated dance studio on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In May, August, September, and December of 2006, she was a guest on the Montel Williams Show (The Faces of MS episode). Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000, Crawford Smith has become an outspoken and inspirational speaker, urging that a cure be found for the physically and cognitively debilitating disease that affects over 5 million people -usually in the prime of their lives. Crawford Smith is a contributing writer to “Mental Sharpening Stones” by Jeffrey N. Gingold (July 2008; Demos Medical Publishing, New York, New York). In Chapter 6: “The Dance of Life: Transformation to Maintain Strength, Balance and Focus”, Crawford Smith shares stories of her life as a single mother, world-class dancer and community leader. And, she offers strategies and perspectives on maintaining cognitive strength when dealing with life’s challenges, as well as offers her own experiences and the example of her continuing career as an effective, determined and motivational teacher of dance.