i am! Productions Co-Artistic Director, Erica Smith grew up with her white mother in Berkeley, CA and her black father in Mill Valley, CA. She studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Canada, where she was the only black student in her classes. At the age of 18, Erica starred in the Loew's Hotel Dinner Theater in Monte Carlo and then went on to perform in all black off-Broadway musical comedies in NYC. She returned to the Bay Area in 1984 to dance with the Berkeley Ballet Theater and the Oakland Ballet. From 1990 to 1996, Erica performed and toured nationally and internationally with the Dance Brigade. Erica has been dedicated to exploring her many cultural identities through performance art and inner city arts education by leading programs at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond and Cole Performing Arts Magnet School in Oakland for the past seven years. She presently directs the dance program at Marin Academy high school in San Rafael, CA.