Dudley+Williams

Dudley Williams was born and raised in New York City. He grew up in the east river projects. His first love and goal was to become a pianist, but that took a turn when the deadline to joining that part of the arts at his school had already passed he resulted to dance. He found his love for dance after watching a local arts school while he was waiting for his uncle. He then began training of his new found passion at age 12 in Harlem and later joined New York's High School for the preforming arts. He graduated in 1958 after he won a dance award and got a scholarship to Julliard School. He attended Julliard at intervals while taking time off to go dance with various companies. In 1961 he joined the Marth Gram company but later left in 1964 to become a member of Alvin Ailey. He once said that his career was a "fluke" because he became such a great dancer from not having a love for dance at all. He left the Ailey company in 2005 and went to work with Paradigm, which is a small troupe founded in 1998. Most of the members are in their sixties. It is a place now where they have no big expectations and philosophy about the wisdom of dance, they just want to keep preforming. He was the oldest dancer of the Alvin Ailey theater and as a 66 year old, he preformed in his 40th and final season with the company. He is the longest active member of the company and probably one of the longest active dancers anywhere.

Here is a video of him preforming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bADQzyg00g

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/freetodance/biographies/dwilliams.html