Q: What inspires you and drives you forward as an artist?

A lot of things honestly. I think one of my biggest inspirations is a film I did called “The Maestro,” based on Ernie Barnes who is a painter. If you ever saw the show “Good Times,” he did those images. The thing that inspires me when I look at his work is that I feel like I am looking at myself. I never knew why the figures had their eyes closed, but as I did further research, I found that he wanted us to make our own meaning of what we thought the painting was. It gives me freedom to explore the possibilities of what the person is thinking.

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Q: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you as a performing artist?

I was in New York doing the Aida lab, Camille was the choreographer for that lab and we were just developing ideas with the music. We had another week and we just made it to the fourth day of the first week, and everything was going great and coming together and then it stopped. So, I said, ‘I’ll leave to go to Atlanta.’ What I noticed was in the first few days here I just needed to be still. Because of the way my brain works, I needed to calm down and just read and figure out how I could make myself make this normal. And I needed to make a plan. There have been days I have given myself permission to not do a damn thing and then others I've worked so creatively, then some days I talk with friends on House Party, which has been super refreshing.