Q: How did you begin dancing?

This may sound cliche, but I was made to dance. The first time I remember dancing was at my great grandmother’s birthday party. I was nine years old. This is such a vivid memory from my childhood. The whole family got together and I asked everyone to come to the living room. My birthday present for my great grandmother was this dance. We moved all the furniture and I danced for her. My family made fun of me for a while afterwards and I didn’t dance again until high school. In high school, I was trying to practice my vocal training but I always found myself in the dance studio. I performed with my friend at an “Open Marley” night and that’s sort of where my training began. From there I auditioned for another performing arts high school that had more of a technical basis, and dance became all I did from that moment on. I went to intensives every summer, then I went to college for dance. I did Joffrey Ballet School, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and I danced with Philadanco’s second company. If we are talking about my relationship to dance and my journey with dance, it has allowed me to find a place of refuge. Growing up, I didn't really know myself, but the one thing I knew was that I loved to dance and loved to train. It was in dancing, training, and the people you begin to touch and connect with in the dance community that I found the freedom to find myself. Now, I am able to understand myself.

Q: What do you mean your family made fun of you for dancing?

They made the typical jokes that come along with a boy deciding he wants to dance, but not only that, my training when I first started dancing at a conservatory was ballet. So, the stereotypes that come with that as far as masculinity and sexuality. Luckily for me, I trained in a men's program so I became accustomed to dancing around other men. I trained at Peabody Institute of John Hopkins University and we had over 30 boys there of all different levels, maybe even more than that. We also had master classes with all of the different studio schools: New York City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, etc. I was surrounded by men when I first started dancing. Outside of that, when I went somewhere to take class, that was never the case. The studio was the only place where I could be myself, even if that meant being slightly more of what one would consider feminine. The studios were accepting and my peers were accepting. I would say outside the studio was different. I felt so strong about dance and insistent to demand respect for what I did at a young age to the people around me. My mother has learned to understand and appreciate what I do pertaining to dance, though she didn't necessarily agree with it while I was growing up. But she also knew it wouldn't end for me.

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

Discipline. Discipline, patience, and love. What it means to be a part of a true community and family.

Q: Has dance helped you overcome any hardships in your life?

Dance is the reason I am able to exist in the way that I do today. Had it not been for dance, I probably would have made it through high school but wouldn't have gone to college. And making it through high school would have been even harder. I personally had to grow in order to keep dance in my life.

Q: What other interests and passions do you have outside of dance that influence and inspire your artistry?

I think I would say my desire to give back. I work with a lot of kids and I want to work with a non-profit. I'm currently working on a non-profit in Vegas. What I want to do outside the studio is community outreach, and that stems from my relationship with dance. Dance is my place of refuge and the individuals I met throughout my training were not just my teachers but people I consider family. A lot of them went above and beyond what they had to do to take care of their students on so many levels. When you read into typical stories of young African American men, especially those who are homosexual, the indivduals who place themsleves with you and decide to guide you, influence you. There is a strong sense of giving back and that affects my dancing because I am constantly thinking about giving. Whether it is giving to the space, the audience, or the dancers around me.

Q: What kind of nonprofits?

I worked with the Association for the Advancement and Integration of Design in Philadelphia. They have a STEM program and I worked with the arts program. We went into the public schools systems to create an afterschool program. I was the project manager and teaching director. I taught art and dance. I also helped find teachers and oversaw their classes. I was the voice in between the individual schools and the director of the program. Many of these schools had no arts programs so that was our job.

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

When you think about any monumental moment in history you can't help but think about the influence that art had during that period, and the voice that resonates through history that comes along with that.

For example you can relate each time period such as the Renaissance and the Baroque, to what was going on in that moment of time. You can also pinpoint how ballets within those times represented the culture and what was going on as well. Dance has the ability to tell the story of what is going on in real life and allows audience members to be awakened to the systematic or social circumstances in a way that doesn’t feel confrontational. We can relate what we are seeing to what is going on during that time period and evaluate it. My answer brings up the question: How do we create art that will question what is going on in our own current state?

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

For starters, it came at what I felt like the worst time for me in my current place as an artist. Well, maybe the worst and the best. Being one of the newer artists in the company I’m dancing with, I felt like I was just starting to get to a place where I could see noticeable changes in my dancing, things were working. And just as that started, it ended. There is something in me that's like a motor, I'm ready to go and want to push. There is also this feeling of being forced to stop. On top of other things, shows were cancelled all the way through December and the studio I taught at closed down, which was my main source of income. I went from teaching two classes to teaching eight classes, so I felt like it was all coming together for me in Vegas as far as work. I just signed to Best Talent agency and now there are no gigs. Vegas is very commercial so it's based upon tourists and shows but nothing is going on now.

On the flip side, it is time to be still and rest. This has opened time to investigate what else I could be doing and I can use this time to grow not only as a dancer but as me. As a full artist both inside and outside the studio. I can dig into my true values and look at what I want to do for the community that feeds me so much. I have been working on a non-profit and now I have time to really put into it. With this still time it's all I can think about. After talking to some people in Vegas, I have decided that with their approval and people willing to work with me, I am going to go along with this new process. It has burst a different way of investigating how I operate in dance.

In this space, on one end we are all in this together, but it also brings an opportunity for us to talk to people we haven't spoken to recently. I am getting videos from people I went to high school and college with. Many companies are posting works online and people are teaching online classes, it's so beautiful. We are still active even in the stillness. It shows the beauty of what we really do. It's a moment to sit back and watch. We still thrive even knowing the arts community will be hit the hardest when this is over. There are small companies that just won't come back. But there will be others who will be able to come back.

Q: What is a message you would like to say to health workers on the front lines if you could?

Thank you for not only devoting your time, energy, and patience, but putting your life on the line. And not only that, but putting those who you hold dear on the line as well. We know you go home to your family. I pray for you and for the best. I hope you will not be affected in a way that harms your life or your family’s lives. You go into work regardless of the long term outcome and it’s beautiful. A thank you is not nearly enough, but thank you.

Q: What social changes and responsibilities have you seen people making during the pandemic?

Allowing people to reconnect to being just people. I think we get caught up in our day to day lives and this moment of stillness has allowed us to take time to manage things at home, or take time for ourselves to be still and listen to what our hearts want to do right now. Like the project you never had the time or space to do.

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.)

In my dream post COVID-19 world, I want there to be more accessibility to the art form. When I say that, I mean accessibility at its purest and best. Also, I wish for the time to ignite a fire in the arts community that forces us to be even more active than we are now. I wish to discuss the longevity of the arts when we talk about funding and to do so in a united way. We have to come together in order to create funding for the arts together. It may be trying to create an organization like International Association for Blacks in Dance (IBD), which now many companies can benefit from. A concept like that. We need to collaborate and bring in each other to have a stronger basis.