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HomeAlexis Jackson

Alexis Jackson  Gregory Hines Memorial Scholarship




This past summer Alexis, a native of Louisiana, attended the Dallas Summer Musicals Academy of Performing Arts Summer Intensive Workshop. Alexis has an inspirational and moving motivation to dance, due to her battle with Crohn’s disease. She one day hopes to dance with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, after having attended the Ailey Fordham BFA Program. She is an avid reader, and her favorite authors include Jodi Picoult and J.K. Rowling.
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This summer I attended the Dallas Summer Musicals Academy. My goals in attending this intensive were to increase my Theater knowledge, improve my stage presence and entertainment qualities, and learn the art of acting and singing while using dance. I wanted to learn from new teachers and choreographers. I also was looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends.
    My first impression on the first day of the camp was so unexpected. I walked in to the theater and most of everyone already new each other and they were already one big Musical family. I didn’t know anyone and then literally they all came over and introduced themselves to me. They told me everything about audition day and how the classes were set up. They told me about all the different teachers and the different activities we were going to do. For the next three weeks I learned how to act, sing and dance. I had never done acting before, so it was all so incredibly new to me. I used to sing in a choir, but it was never up to the caliber that it was at DSM. It was so ironic how I have no problem with getting up and dancing in front of a big crowd all by myself, but give me a script or sheet of music and ask me to perform it by myself in front of anyone; I would freak out and freeze up with terrible stage fright. But after this camp, I was more comfortable with it than I ever thought I would be. I met many different people from Colleen Kelley to other advisors who gave seminars on Mental Management and “How to Audition”. I walked away from this intensive with a new found love of Theater and the knowledge of how to work together and put together a musical production.
    This experience at DSM has heartily improved my stage presence and entertainment qualities. My main style of dance is modern and ballet, and most of the time those works are so serious that I had forgotten how to truly smile and outwardly enjoy a more fun type of dance. I have also come away this summer with so many new talented friends that I will always keep in touch with.  DSM has affected my dance skills in so many ways.  I have become more diverse in my dance training and am now looking in to the possibility of a career in Musical Theatre.