Alana Hawkins began her journey of dance with her fourth grade dance team; Dancers in Motion. She started predominantly studying hip hop movement, but that came to a quick halt after being rejected from Thomas pullens arts school due to no ballet training. This prompted the 10 year old to begin her journey with technical dance at a local school called; Starbound dance studios. Here she was introduced to and fell in love with the art of ballet. 2 years later in 2005 she was accepted into the dance program at Duke Ellington School of the Arts. It was here she began studying the Horton technique under Katherine Smith and continued her ballet training under Saundra Fortune-Green and Charles Augins. She also worked extensively with world renowned choreographer; Christopher Huggins, landing solos in several of his works including “Chaos”, “Mothers of War” and “Old Landmark”. During her high school career Alana immersed herself into the study of dance. To keep her studies diverse she began taking additional classes outside of Duke Ellington, completing the Alvin Ailey dance theatre certificate program twice, The American Ballet Summer intensive, Dance theatre of Harlem intensive and weekly classes at The Washington Ballet. These are just a portion of the training she completed before moving to chicago in 2009. 

Alana moved to Chicago and enrolled in Columbia College; a private liberal arts school. Having a more extensive background then most of the students there, she was placed in the highest levels and felt no opportunity for growth at the university.. She changed her major from Dance to business after just one semester and began taking classes and doing auditions in the city. She landed many gigs including dancing background for artists like Beyonce on Oprah Winfrey’s final episode R&b Singer Jermiah and other local gigs. After concluding commercial dance was not for her she found a home with the Deeply Rooted Dance program and continued studying the Horton technique under Kevin Iega Jeff. After a couple of years Alana was in love with the company and set out to join by way of their summer intensive. It was this summer in 2016 that Alana became very sick, her bones became very brittle and she ended up dislocating her shoulder. 

After a full year of surgery, recovery and physical training Alana found herself discouraged and redirected from dance and began investing in a career in business. 

Through divine connection Alana began teaching technique for the Diamond Dance company in 2017. It was through this teaching that  she found the confidence and strength to begin her journey of dance again. She began studying at the Lou Conte dance studios and vigorously repairing her body and mind. In 2020 her dreams of being in a professional dance company was replaced with her dreams of building a company. One that would bridge the gap between the classical and traditional world she was trained up in and this new millennial world. One that would make all people feel like they could be a dancer regardless of the physical requirements that have plagued the professional world of dance for centuries. There had been no one in her generation doing what Alvin Ailey, Kevin Iega Jeff and many others had done for minority dance and she was determined to be the one to do so. This was the birth of the Hawkins House of Horton.