There’s no doubt that Shell Benjamin was born to dance. Her dream was to be a ballerina who skated, danced and sang on ice.
She grew up on the poor end of Brooklyn, N.Y., but her parents believed in her talent. They enrolled her in Saturday dance lessons and sacrificed to make sure she had the necessary resources like pointe shoes, leotards and transportation.
The young dancer started at the Brooklyn Academy of Music under Charles Moore and later transitioned to a local dance school in Queens, N.Y. under Gloria Jackson. As Shell progressed, her mother enrolled her at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, which was an over two hour weekly train ride.
“That was my life,” Shell said. “I lived for it.”
She later auditioned for the High School of Performing Arts, which offered academics and professional dance. Shell didn’t know anything about professional dance but knew she had to go for it. Her audition piece was self choreographed in the family’s basement with music from her father’s albums.
“I walked into a world that was unfamiliar in the sense that I had not had the quote on quote formal training like everyone else whose parents or guardians knew to take them to dance class everyday,” Shell said.
There were moves during the audition that she had never seen before, but the dancer knew she was smart enough to figure them out on the spot. Shell was accepted shortly after but debated if she wanted to pursue dance or her other passion of becoming a lawyer. Her father told her that she would pursue dance because she loved it, and that’s what she did.
“That was all I needed,” Shell said.
While at the performing arts school, she received scholarships for after school dance programs like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Shell also auditioned and made an appearance in the movie “Fame,” which exposed her to another realm of what she could do as a dancer.
The education and dance training she received led her to Julliard where she was required to re-audition every semester to keep her place. That taught her the hard work and perseverance it took to make it in the dance world. Those lessons carried her as she started her professional career.
Her first taste into the professional dance arena was a McDonald’s commercial. A friend told her about the audition, which was for dancers who were represented by certain agents. Shell went to the audition the following day not knowing it was invitation only, stood center front and danced her heart out.
“The director and producer came into the room after teaching the combinations and singled me out,” Shell said. “He said ‘Who are you?’”
Shell proudly told him her name and said a well-known agent sent her to the audition, which was a lie because she had no agent. The Juilliard graduate was told that the audition was for dancers with the “all-american look,” which meant blonde hair and blue eyes. The director and producer went on to say that she needed permission to audition as she stood in a sea of dancers who looked nothing like her.
“He didn’t say leave, so I stayed,” Shell said.
After returning home, Shell received a phone call from the agent she said sent her to audition and instantly thought her career was over. The agent fussed a bit but told her that she booked the job and soon after signed the dancer as a client.
Some of Shell’s other professional highlights include being a part of the Broadway play “Honky Tonk Nights,” dancing and singing for the king of Norway and traveling throughout Amsterdam and Germany
“Those are some highlights of realizing how resilience and your talent makes room for itself,” Shell said.
There was a pivotal point in her career where she realized that she no longer lived to dance but danced to live. The professional dancer knew she could use dance as a tool to help others express themselves, so she decided to pursue higher education and share everything she learned.
“It helped me to survive and navigate the planet as an African American woman,” Shell said.
The educator earned her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2010 and completed her k-12 dance certification in 2011. Today, Shell teaches at a private boarding school in New York. Along with being a dance teacher, she serves as director of the school’s dance company, creates curriculum, advises an urban hip hop group called Urban Connection, hires guest artists to teach and serves as a student mentor along with many other things.
“I feel honored to be able to look at new talent who are up and coming and give them a place to create works,” Shell said.
From traveling the world as a professional dancer to teaching the next generation, Shell’s life and career is a picture of what having faith and trusting God looks like. The advice she would give her younger self are words many can live by.
Believe in yourself, explore, don’t compromise because God has the best for you, don’t worry about the constraints people place on you and know that it’s not over until God says it’s over.
Caleb Britt 