Q: Can you talk a little bit about how you first started to dance?

I started dancing in the fourth grade. I was a bit of a tomboy and was more interested in games and sports. I poked fun at the idea of girls having to look up to dancers--wanting to be ballerinas. I just wanted to be like one of the boys. Overtime, it got to the point where a lot of my friends in school were spending more time at our local dance studio and I didn't have anyone to hang out with after school was out. When my two best friends had their summer recital, I went, and shortly after decided to join in taking dance classes. Of course once I got there, I learned that I couldn't dance with my friends because they all started when they were like, two years old. And here I was, in the fourth grade in the beginner classes with really young kids. I had to work my way up. And by the time I actually got to their level, it wasn’t long before many of them grew tired of dancing and started to do different extracurricular activities. Years down the line I never found myself leaving the studio...and dance has remained a huge part of my life.

Q: What has dance taught you that you apply to your everyday life and how you engage with the world?

Dance is so integrated into my life that it is a challenge to separate the two. Dance has impacted so much of who I am and how I am--from the ways that I am disciplined and hardworking, to the many ways that I want to present myself and connect to others. When you’re dancing, you are more in tune with your body than is common, and that truth really affected me in my formative years. I became more sensitive to touch and because of dance, I carry the understanding that touch can be impactful and hold so much power and grace. And that felt like a hugely important lesson. It’s not like I wish for every single person to become a dancer, but if young kids and developing teens had access to learn how to dance in the same space together, have their bodies moving together, and maybe even partner--that could teach both freedom of movement, and an understanding of boundaries and respect. I firmly believe such values are not only potent, but they set such a strong foundation for how we grow to engage in our communities and environments.

Q: What have been some challenges in either your pre-professional or professional dance career?

It was always challenging growing up to not see myself in the world that I wanted to be in, or was even told to strive for. Physically, I build muscle in a different way that looks more defined and full. I have wide flat feet and no hyperextension or any crazy flexible range. I am a brown skinned Black woman and I had different hair than the many thin and classically aesthetically pleasing white dancers around me. I also wasn’t a competition kid or someone who had some supreme technical training. As I grew up and learned that the world of dance as an industry valued lines, tricks, and really uplifted whiteness, I felt so behind and I totally struggled with my self worth and confidence. It was so hard to not see Black women and people who looked and moved like me represented in dance companies on stage and in movies and media.

In general, I tend to gravitate towards comfort. I’d rather be safe than sorry. And while it’s important to be safe, smart and healthy, my lack of confidence held me back from taking risks, being wild, and having fun in my dance “training”. I was paralyzed with the fear of failing, and of course, some of that fear creeps into my present professional career and into my life today.

Through the many highs and lows of how I felt about myself, I never left the studio. I stayed closer to what I did know. I owned the fact that I love to move and I started to identify more as a mover than as a dancer because I felt so left out of the dance world that I just needed the change in language all together. Although that move came from insecurity, it helped my confidence overtime because it was a practice in owning my love and spiritual connection to movement.

As I moved through my professional career, one of the amazing things, more so after I graduated from New York University, was getting to this place where I was like, “If I want this, I have to just do it.” I remember seeing A.I.M perform up in Harlem. I vividly remember seeing Rena Butler on stage and thinking about how brilliant she, and the entire production was as a whole. I was finally seeing people who looked like me perform work that I connected with, and I was so inspired. But, in the back of my self conscious mind, I was also telling myself that I would never be able to do what I saw on that stage.

Less than one year later I went to A.I.M’s audition and found myself being asked to do the very thing that I had seen before and explicitly told myself I could not do. In any other environment, I would be in the back of a room dimming my own light to avoid trying movement that I saw as hard. I would quietly fake it until I got attention off of me and back onto someone else. But here I was, in this audition with a different fire under me. I had to try the move and when I did, I didn’t embarrass myself and I actually enjoyed myself. I will never in my life forget that moment. It was like a light turned on, and from then on, I vowed to, at the bare minimum, try. To give myself enough credit to take a chance. To fight for what I before couldn't even admit that I wanted. My confidence is still something that can kind of knock me down and keep me down, but it’s really gotten so much better over the years and I am proud of that.

Q: How do you think that dance can be used as a platform for social justice issues?

How can it not be? That's what we're here for--that's what I'm here for. It may be the Aquarian in me, but I'm all about what can be changed for the better in the big scheme of things. In the performing arts and in dance, we have a real opportunity to not only reflect the society that we live in, but make the people who don't feel like they fit in feel a home in it. We can reflect the change that we want to see within that society. We can comment on the good, the bad, the ugly, the traumatic injustices, all of it. We have so many choices and opportunities in art--we can make it abstract, make it literal, we can create a narrative…And as an audience member, you get to witness a dance and you get to take it home! You take home your memory of the work and what stuck with you. Whatever that is, it comes from your perception of the world. Those are your projections from your past and present. It’s your perspective, your prejudices, your biases, and everything else.

I've learned so much about myself through watching dance, especially work that does reflect society and take a stance against social injustice. I get to go home and ask myself, “What am I taking away from this? How am I even perceiving this that tells me about myself and my walk through life?” I believe it's an amazing gift and tool for change.

As artists, we have to ask, “What do we really want to say when we can say it?” And whether our audiences are present virtually or in real life, how can we remain present? How can we connect and remember that we can be different and still respect each other? We should shed light on communities that are underprivileged and are unseen, and remind them, and all of society that no one should be made to feel invisible. There are so many opportunities to be creative, inclusive, direct and honest. However we decide to interact, we should do so with meaning and purpose.

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

COVID-19 has changed everything from my artistic lifestyle to my financial support and earnings. As an artist, the forced time to pause has also created space for more positivity and gratitude in my life. When I think about it, absolutely everything is so up in the air and I have no clue what is coming and how it will arrive. I can easily get hypothetical about this or that, and get anxious and overwhelmed. But, this is the first time where I have found it is actually easier for me to just be in the present moment. To just rest. Because the “What if?” is too much to fantasize about right now.

Although I have less access to physical, tangible connections, I feel like I currently have, and hopefully will continue to have more access to resources within myself that I had discounted before. What can I offer that I wasn't even admitting or owning, let alone, looking for within myself?

I am usually always looking for greatness and seeing potential within others. In giving myself this time to meditate, journal, manifest and write down and speak out what I want in life, I have believed more in myself, and in what I deserve. I’ve also been able to give time to my other interests and passions. I teach yoga and I love taking photographs. I'm obsessed with design and ceramics and furniture.

In trying not to overly prepare myself for any re-openings and the anxieties that may come with that, I have been able to give myself the space and comfort to love myself and give myself grace. It's always easier to give it out, give it out, give it out. And not take it myself. But now, I know if I really do the work inside, I'll also be able to have what I want for my community.

Also, what breaks my heart right now is this understanding--and I know, especially working in immigration law, that you know this--that the sweeping changes that aren't yet legislative policy changes, but are the local and statewide mandates that are happening, are going to affect Black, Indigenous and People of Color the absolute most. They are going to affect immigrants. They are going to affect the LGBTQ community. It's going to affect people who are underserved, underprivileged, and unseen. So much power has been funneled into our local leaders and of course the federal government, and I see a lot of folks taking advantage of this moment to push their own biased agendas. It’s a lot to just sit back and witness and it makes me ask in more creative ways, “What can we do?” Maybe I can't donate as much as I used to. I definitely can't go out and volunteer right now in a way that I would have before but, how can I nourish myself and my artistry so that I can be of better service to my community? This pandemic has revved up more passion inside of me than I knew existed. There's so much to do aside from posting on social media. Put your money where your mouth is, ya know? I don’t shop often and try to be as environmentally conservative as I can, but when I buy, I do so with intention and with the understanding that my consumer dollars have power. I try to buy from local small businesses, from women and Black businesses. There are ways that we can continually support people, and I think that this time has really ignited the natural drive within me to change the world for the better. I dream of true equity and liberation. Not only because activism is a part of who I am, but because I have tasted immense freedom through dance, and I want that feeling to not only last, but to be felt by all.