Going on stage and transcending the audience and becoming this otherworldly thing makes you a dancer. It's not so black and white.
I learned how to communicate and articulate myself from ballet. It's just insane to me, when they don't think of that as a part of our education.
I just want to leave a positive memory of setting an example and bringing our youth with us.
It's difficult to exist as a woman, especially I think as a powerful woman. You want to stand strong and you want to be considered and equal.
I do think that it's a responsibility when there are so few of us as African Americans to kind of get to that place of success in a positive light. We should take a stance and stand for something and use that platform for positivity.
I absolutely love what I do, and I want to dance for as long as I can and feel good about what I am putting out there on the stage.
I never knew I wanted to become a ballerina. I was discovered at the age of 13. I had a love for movement even though I had no exposure to dance other than what I saw in music videos, like hip-hop music videos. But I knew that I loved moving.
I don't believe in dieting, I don't believe in having certain moments in your life where you're healthy and then moments when you're like, "I'm going to eat whatever I want." It's just finding what works for your body and always eating healthy.
The fact that I was African American was never addressed, and that allowed me to just be a student, like anyone else. I was not aware of how rare it was to be an African American, how rare it was to have four years of training under my belt, and how, even though I could imitate people and fake it, unprepared I was to become a professional.
To be an artist and to be recognized by another artist who is, you know, just something you can't even put into words, someone that is so far beyond what the normal human being experience is in terms of creativity and originality. That was kind of a moment where I thought wow maybe I do have something more that makes me special.
I'm a classical ballet dancer, and at the end of the day I want to be with American Ballet Theater, performing classical ballets.
For me, I was in school and I pushed myself to be a good student, just because that's the type of person I was, but I never had a connection to any of it. I don't think my brain functioned in a way that was at its height, when I was in school. I needed something like art to really value the way my mind works. I wasn't reaching my full potential by sitting in a classroom and reading from a book. My mind didn't work that way.
My goal has always been to be a principal dancer with ABT.
I shouldn't even be wearing a tutu. I don't have the right legs, my muscles are too big.
When you see the body outside of a costume and see the strength that it takes, people would look at dance a different way and see how athletic it is. You're not just born like that.
I know that I'll forever be involved in ballet. This is where my life was meant to be, and I don't see myself straying completely away, ever.
Meeting Raven Wilkinson and having her as a mentor, it was that kind of support from the generations that came before me that helped to lift me up and give me the confidence to then be able to give back and bring other minorities with me on this journey.
I do think Under Armour is setting a new example for what a ballerina is, and that you can be feminine and an athlete and represent what a woman is at the same time.
I think that I'm so fortunate to have found classical ballet. It completely changed my life and it shaped the person that I am today, on and off the stage.
My first ballet class was on a basketball court. I'm in my gym clothes and my socks trying to do this thing called ballet.
I absolutely love what I do. And I want to dance for as long as I can and feel good about what I'm putting out there on the stage. But my goal has always been to be a principal dancer with ABT. Before I knew that there had never been a black woman, that was always my goal. I wanted to dance Odette-Odile and Kitri and "Don Quixote" and Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty." So that's still my goal. But knowing that it's never been done before, I think makes me fight even harder.
Just as a child, before I ever knew what ballet was, there was something in me where I was always searching for something structured, something that was bigger than me, and something so historical that I could be a part of. I didn't find that until I stepped into the ballet world, and it was overwhelming, the feeling of being a part of something that's bigger than you.
Everything I was being shown was ABT, so I grew up watching these videos of [Mikhail] Baryshnikov, Gelsey [Kirkland] and Paloma [Herrera]. Paloma and Angel [Corella] were the first people I ever saw dance live.
That it's possible to do positive things and I think that's how we're going to set an example to be respected as women in the world.
When people meet me in person, they're usually surprised at how petite I am because there's just [an] idea that because I'm black I just look a certain way.
