The Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center aims to use the arts, primarily dance, as a means to empower youth within New York’s inner city communities. We endeavor to mold elite dancers and artists who will be able to develop, grow and compete on the world’s stage. The center will be a springboard for creating community identity and encouraging creative activity in neglected inner city areas. The Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center’s mission is to use dance as a platform to encourage, inspire, and facilitate the aspirations of young people by engendering within them discipline, pride, determination, humility, respect and an appreciation for the arts. We endeavor to plant seeds of possibility where previously growth and development has been perceived an impossibility.