When you adopt a child, there’s no telling what kind of person they will be.
Their talents, their personality, their likes and dislikes — everything about them will be a surprise. So when Alison Stroming, originally from Brazil, was adopted into a family of dancers, it was anybody’s guess whether she, too, would take to the stage.
Her mother, Jackie, let her try everything from horseback riding to gymnastics. But as it turned out, it was indeed dance that stuck — something she was pretty amazing at. With her mom’s help, she trained extensively throughout her childhood and has gone on to dance at Juilliard, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan Opera.
The only drawback is that today, Allison lives and dances in Manhattan and rarely gets to see her mom, who lives in Los Angeles.
Luckily, they recently had a chance to sit down and talk, and Alison took the opportunity to thank Jackie — with a care package made of memories especially for her.
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It was clear from the beginning that what Alison wanted was to dance.
But though she was clearly born with the same natural talent for dance as her siblings, there was one way in which they differed — Alison was much more shy than her four older siblings.
It was Jackie who guided her, time and again, back to what she loved. “When you would go on stage, you lost all fear,” Jackie says.
