Detroit dancer dancing onto big stages
OAK PARK, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) – As CBS News Detroit continues to celebrate Women's History Month, highlighting amazing women across southeast Michigan, we want to introduce you to Alanna Phillips, a native Detroiter dancing her way onto big stages.
Phillips, 26, has traveled the country and even the world, touring with artists like Lizzo, Saweetie and Master P.
"Dance is so personal; people can tell when you're faking it," Phillips said. "I think I'm just so grateful because my life could have been something different."
Born and raised in Detroit, it's here where Phillips was first introduced to dance in the first grade.
Although her journey hasn't always been easy.
"It's kind of a biased space – just toward women of color for one, women who have body, for two," Phillips said.
Now, hopping on a plane, traveling the country to dance with A-list music artists is almost second nature to the 26-year-old. But the moment she was tapped by a choreographer to dance with Lizzo at the Grammys in 2020 is still fresh in her mind.
"I [saw] the message go across my phone, 'you're booked.' I was scared to open the message. I'm like I don't even want to know what he was saying," Phillips recounted.
That was her first professional performance, but the pandemic temporarily dashed some of her dance dreams.
"COVID. Lockdown. I really felt like [the Grammys] was my foot in the door and I was about to get the ball rolling," she said.
That ball is back on a roll as Phillips dances with rap phenom, Saweetie, making stops in cities like Arlington and Budapest,
She says if she could tell her younger self one thing, she'd say this:
"Not girl we made it, but we made it. I look back while I'm doing somethings. Just last month when I was coming off stage, I said, 'Wow.' I'm really doing the thing that I said I wanted to do," Phillips said.
Not only is Phillips a professional dancer, she teaches dance at LaShelle's School of Dance in Oak Park, the dance studio that gave her her start. This week she's headed back to Texas with Saweetie to dance at a major music festival.
