Attorney Geoffrey R.W. Smith peered into a dance studio, where a half dozen ballerinas were on their toes. Waiting somewhat impatiently for them to finish, he bent in a calf-muscle-warming stretch. He was not at the headquarters of the Washington Ballet on a legal matter.
Smith, 64, regularly escapes his work—complex cases involving food and drug laws—by taking class and, occasionally, by performing. In October, he appeared in the Washington Ballet's Don Quixote at the Kennedy Center playing Lorenzo, an innkeeper who attempts to break up the love affair of his daughter with a handsome but poor barber. In December, Smith reprised a role for the Olney (Md.) Ballet Theater that he had performed twice before, that of Herr Drosselmeyer, the wizard who is young Clara's godfather in the Christmas perennial, The Nutcracker.
"They are two very different roles," he says. "Lorenzo is basically the ‘straight man' in a romantic comedy. Drosselmeyer is the lead—really, sole—adult personality in the ballet and is basically responsible for everything that winds up happening on stage."
Smith took his first ballet class at 31, acknowledging a heritage he ignored while pursuing his law degree and early career. His mother was a dancer employed in Chicago by the Works Progress Administration program during the Depression; his father was a WPA photographer. A cousin was a principal dancer for the San Francisco Ballet in the 1940s and 1950s.
Smith worked at several major D.C. law firms, mostly defending pharmaceutical corporations at the appellate level. But appreciation for dance led to behind-the-scenes volunteer work, including serving as chair of the Washington Ballet board and vice chair of the Actors Theater of Washington. He's currently secretary of Youth American Grand Prix, an international ballet and contemporary dance scholarship competition.
Smith finds similarities between his practice of law and ballet performances. "I prep like hell, then, once I am doing it, a bomb could go off and I remain totally focused, in my own little zone."
