Theatre & dance
Precious Adams
· ballet dancer
Ballet dancer from Canton, Michigan, trained in Wixom and at the Bolshoi, who danced with English National Ballet and was named to the BBC 100 Women list in 2019.
- Detroit years
- 1990s–2006
- Field
- Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Adams was born and raised in Canton, in western Wayne County. She started at a competitive jazz studio at seven and began classical ballet at nine with Sergey Rayevskiy at the Academy of Russian Classical Ballet in Wixom. At eleven she left for Canada's National Ballet School, then trained at the Princess Grace Academy in Monte Carlo and at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, where she later described being excluded from performances and told to 'rub the black off'. She won two prizes at the 2014 Prix de Lausanne, joined English National Ballet that year and won its Emerging Dancer competition in 2018. In 2018 she announced she would dance in brown tights matching her skin instead of pink ones, a stand that drew criticism but was backed by her director, Tamara Rojo. She returned home in 2013 to dance in the Stars of Russian Ballet gala in Michigan.
Highlights
- Began ballet at nine at the Academy of Russian Classical Ballet in Wixom
- Trained at Canada's National Ballet School, Monte Carlo and the Bolshoi Academy
- Two prizes at the 2014 Prix de Lausanne
- English National Ballet Emerging Dancer winner (2018); BBC 100 Women (2019)