Q: How did you begin dancing?

As a kid, I was very active. I was that one cartwheel kid, you know that kid that doesn't stop. I didn't really get into dance until I was 13. And it all started because I wanted to impress this girl. And so I went on the classic YouTube looking up some, you know, breaking moves and studied under breaking, and then fell in love with dance after performing it the first time. People were like, whoa, like, you can move.I fell in love with dance instead of the girl.

Q: What has dance taught you that you have applied to your everyday life and how you engage in the world?

The way I look at it is dance was kind of the vehicle for me to find the feel for my life, which was love. What I mean by love is just like unconditional love - accepting others for who they are, that unique connection. You know that feeling of truly being yourself when you didn't so it was a great vehicle to, you know, portray how much I love the world and how much other people love dance or love me.  

Q: What have been some challenges in your pre professional and professional career?

One of the biggest challenges in my career was definitely being so far from a lot of industry-type dance, because I live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so it's right on the seacoast. I mean I'm only an hour away from Boston, but I never had a family that would bring me to things. Even the dance shoes, especially in my craft urban dance. There isn't much up here. That was the hardest. But at the same time, I don't want to say it was a bad thing because it definitely made my journey unique and made it more successful because, again, there weren't a lot of things up here. I almost felt like the Pioneer up here. I guess distance from everything means you can learn so much through technology but it's different where you get to sit with like an O.G. of hip hop and chit chat with him or like train in LA and just grind out in your foundational classes. You don't get that here. You have to literally just observe, and then mimic, and then study.I think distance is probably the most challenging.

Q: How can dance be a platform for social justice issues?

I think dance is kind of the message, or the picket fence or the picket sign that people feel. It doesn't matter who you are. If you watch any type of dance, whether it's something emotional or something funny, everyone has a reaction, you know, and there's no denying that it doesn't matter what kind of human you are. So I think tapping into messages and, you know, things that are even bigger in terms of trying to change the world right dance is plucked in that string. I think a famous monk once said, “Dance is the closest thing to the soul,” and that stuck to me because, again, I live in a place where there isn't too much urban dance. When we do our performances and stuff we're getting like raggedy fisherman guys crying, you know, and I think dance is the message from whatever you believe in or love.

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

So I'll start with the negative stuff first. The toughest part about COVID-19 is in the opening of the studio. Obviously you have plans and, obviously, in a good business, you don't get so detailed in planning everything because it will never go the way it is, but you have a general plan. And it definitely threw a curveball, you know, especially when we started Indiegogo, and it ended, but trying to raise money with an Indiegogo is crazy. It first started with a huge kick, I think it was like two weeks in at $10,000, and you're like wow this is crazy. But then, obviously once COVID-19 hit it was like you couldn't ask anyone for money anymore. A:You're asking them for money but for something that doesn't exist yet. B: You can't do that to other people, they need to eat, those people need to live. So, for me, it was hard because I understand that everyone's struggling. But where was I gonna take my business? I was planning for summer events too, you know, do a little soft opening, and then have a grand opening. We had all these cool plans, but we don't even know if we're gonna have summer anymore. We don't even know how people can be in the same room anymore. So, it really made me question the business. Okay, what were dance studios doing before? What was working and what's not gonna work. I guess this is a low key positive but it's forcing me to look deeper into these plans and be like, is this innovative enough for the new world? How can I make a dance class feel the same in terms of interest and love but push it in a way where it's gonna work for the industry again and work for this new world? So that's the negative aspects thinking on the business side, but as the artist side I find it one of the most needed breaks. I was such a back to back type person, like going 1000 miles per hour and just going for it constantly. Literally the day I found that everything was canceled, I couldn't even pick up my phone to text people, because I had to go. I taught at a school, had to go to another school, had to go to this school, and had to drive myself to Rhode Island, and all these crazy things. That crazy lifestyle all sudden got chopped and I was just like, Whoa. It didn't hit me at first, and I think it took maybe about a weekend. It then started hitting me in terms of sadness and I was just like, man, like, you know, you're missing all this. They took away the beaches, I was like, Oh, and I was like, as an artist, you know, you go to certain places to feel good. So the beaches were taken away. I remember being like, missing everything. Then I don't know whether it was just like, more thinking, but then I started being like “Anthony, you know what, everything that's happening isn't is all obviously happening for a reason but isn't happening to make you worse.” And I was like, all right, that's true. So what does that mean? So then I was like wow, I have to look at COVID-19 as leverage. Leverage to step up, you know I'm watching all the dance industry people do these live classes and Zoom classes and all these things and I'm like, it's great but they're trying to fit the old world into this new world. But it's, it's not really working, or we're not getting enough connection. It inspired me to create a program myself. I called this project Project Ascend, and it's basically a very small group of people talking to artists about how they create. And then we would challenge them. Me and my friend did a collaboration on this thing called incorporate, we're like you know what, let's draw pictures together online and dance with it. So it pushed us to think different, and the response for these just small programs were like, this is so much better than like Instagram Live, like we feel more inspired as artists and dancers. And I was just like, Whoa, that's it. COVID-19 is leverage for us artists, we have to look at this world, as you know what happened is completed, like all the regular stuff that we used to do like again like people go into like Millennium dance studio and just chugging along. Maybe it's over, maybe it's completed we're now living in a different world where we have to focus on something else. So it inspired me to figure out what what's next. So now I'm just super motivated and like, let me study so many different things to supplement dance instead of drinking from the same pool. Everyone's always drinking from the same pond of water, thinking we're going to grow dance. We should be looking at outside things, so it inspired me to look into more storytelling filmmaking. I've picked up a ukulele and just all these fun things too, I guess, push my art to a higher level.So, as an artist, it's been such a blessing. And as a business owner, it still has been such a blessing, but in a nerve wracking blessing. But either way, all pain and disease aside I think COVID-19 was the rock bottom that we all needed to realize it's time to get up and change the world for the better. So for me, I'm seeing it in a different light now and I think the rest of the world needs to see that, so I gotta keep sharing. There are a ton more programs that I'm doing with friends and about to create, but these programs have to do with art and dance. Unlike the classes that you see every single day on Instagram and stuff where it's just, “I'm going to teach you” I was kind of like over like the lag and things like that and don't get me wrong, like I still do those classes, when I have to, but I was like, how can I engage the audience through this computer? So, we were chit chatting together and we're like, let's have them drop pictures and have certain themes each day, and play music. So we're listening to like one song together, and then the drawing. I think the first day was shapes, and we're painting or drawing shapes, and like, alright guys, we're going to do two more rounds of that. And then we're going to dance to our picture, which was the next round, you know, so it was kind of taking simple stuff and I guess being more creative with dance rather than just taking a dance class. So then those artists were like okay so we're looking at my picture, and they started getting connected with their art, and they would start to create those pieces, those shapes and stuff like that. Project Ascend was a moment, it was kind of my, I guess, double edged sword to get the artists that you know they're also struggling to be able to talk about what they love, and their process of how they literally make their art pieces, whether it's filmmaking or photography or installation sculptures. I had them talk to the kiddos that want to be artists and create more things. So it was kind of this exchange where these kids are like, “Whoa, like I'm actually talking to someone and they're telling me how they create their art.” And what's cool too is, I never go beyond ten or fifteen because then it gets too much, especially on Zoom, because then you can't really see anyone and you can't hear anyone. It's more personal. And we have fun things coming along like me and my friend, Jesse are planning on doing a little spoof event called Dungeons and Dancers, where we all sit down and we tell a story, and then dance. How like in Dungeons and Dragons they roll the dice and stuff. Yeah, but we had to do that research because I had no idea what those things are. So they had to roll a dice to figure out what they're allowed to use. For example, if I rolled a six I'm like oh, I'm allowed to wave. So then they create their characters so the guy can only wave, he can't do footwork or something. And then we tell a story and now they have to portray that story with the character they have. So, it challenges them to think of a new way to keep these people dancing, without being like, okay, right arm on 1!

Q: Using the idea of “worldmaking” how do you imagine the performing arts world after the pandemic? (Worldmaking: How you can re-imagine the world in your own terms, the way you want it to be. Using this tool one can construct new worlds and write themselves into narratives that have excluded them and systems that have disabled them.)

So I've been a huge, huge advocate for the love of the art. Lowkey have this like weird, I don't want to say grudge, but I just don't like how our dance industry is because it's very toxic. You hear people say, Yo we got like nine hour rehearsals and you can’t just go take a break because if the director sees you taking a break, they're gonna get mad at you and somehow dancers are okay with that. And in my head I'm like, what?? You're like, lowkey hurting yourself to be behind a Rihanna or something. like that and I'm like, don't get me wrong like everyone wants to meet some famous animal but like, why are we downgrading dancers? We should be like, yo, hello you paid us, we're behind you. We're here to highlight you. We're here to make your show better. You deserve to be paid. There's a huge thing with dancers and pay. That stuff is not fulfilling, you know, don't get me wrong like you work on something for so long, then all of a sudden, you do one bit big performance. For me, I hope it taps in and makes everyone kind of focus on themselves as dancers, instead of like, let me go to ten different auditions, try to get this gig, just so I can say I have this under my belt. Let's be more artists, rather than downgrading us as machines and tools, we should be like no, we’re actual artists. I'm currently training with Ian Eastwood right now, and he said something in one of our private calls. And this was crazy. He's been choreographing for months and months and months, and he does it for this one shoot. And then the editor is just picking random stuff. So it's like lowkey not even caring about the dance, and he's like, it's hard. As a choreographer to make something and have someone just put like random stuff together, you put some thought to it. So he was saying how it's important that dancers start to branch out and try different things rather than pulling from the same pool following this person's footsteps, learning how to edit, learning how to be assistant director. That’s me saying that if dancers are the editors, they're gonna be like, oh man, you hit that beat would you let me edit that in, you know, rather than some person just being like, Oh, nope, you're just a tool that looks fine oh it's good. And he was saying as a director. He was caring about the artist, you know, he said that it doesn't matter if the lights went off when he did, he felt the best during the move, or something. He's gonna take that over the lit up shot where he didn't feel good. And I hope the dance world starts to focus on the love for everything, because, again, now we're sitting here in our rooms and being like, you don’t know what's next. So I hope this makes our dance world look a little bigger rather than going back to a guest just like them, the hustle, you know, think more about art, and then mix it in.