Q: What has your professional dance journey been like, and how did you come to create your company? What is the most recent show you have been a part of and how did you come to be a part of it?

I first started dancing in an after-school program for West African dance in my elementary school. The teacher and group of students meshed well, so our teacher started to tour us around Detroit. (I’m from Detroit.) If a church had an event, we would perform. We formed a group camaraderie. My next teacher was an Afro-Cuban dance teacher, and I had a special connection with her because I was best friends with her step-daughter. Even after she stopped teaching at the school, I followed her and continued to take class from her growing up when she was in Detroit. She formed an informal trio with myself and my best friends. She taught at Wayne State University, and we would have special appearances as the children as a part of her residency performance. I started out with folkloric and Afro-Cuban dance. 

When I first got to high school, I left dance for a while because she went back to Cuba. I then jumped back into dance with modern and ballet in high school. I have to give a shout out to Ballet Renaissance, which is my ballet home; a generous woman there allowed me to take classes at a discounted rate. I’m not a ballerina whatsoever, but I needed ballet at that time for the training of my body. Even though my body didn’t agree with ballet, she helped me stick with it and push through. She helped me receive the training I needed while encouraging me to pursue the types of dances that felt better in my body, like folkloric dances, social dancers, and even hip-hop. After that, I actually auditioned for Ohio State University and Western University. I got into both and got scholarships at both. I also auditioned for the summer program at the Alvin Ailey School. I got into the summer program and I talked to the director about what it takes to transfer into the program. They told me that if I wanted to audition, they were having a special audition there in two weeks, and if I could make it there, I could audition. I asked my mom, “Please please please!” if I could audition for the BFA at Alvin Ailey, and she said yes. I auditioned, got in, and I went to the Fordham-Ailey BFA program on a scholarship. That is my training, ballet and modern. By a twist of fate, my dance teacher from home had moved to NYC while I was in college. I continued to study with her and her dance company my senior year––that launched my professional career. I’ve danced with a lot of people since college and it has been really great. They have all been important to my development as a dancer. Throughout all of it, I’ve also created my own work and set work around the world. 

I don’t have a formal company, I have a collective of individuals I work with. I’m a choreographer, but I am not the most prolific choreographer. I don’t aim to consistently put out work. I like to take my time and develop at my own speed when I have an idea. It usually takes a few years, and I am okay with that. In terms of my choreographic voice, I work within the modality of contemporary modern dance, but I use a lot of folklore within my work; It influences the work in terms of themes and content as well as the movement style. Folklore, to me, means the Afro-Cuban influence. I have a strong Afro-Haitian and hip-hop base. I would consider myself a former house-head, and my informal training and formal training make their way into my work. I’m really proud of my work and the places I’ve been able to take it. It can be scary for me to go from really embodying someone else’s work to trying to discover my own voice. I’m definitely still in that process, but I am really proud of the work that I have made. 

In 2013, I moved from Washington Heights to Brooklyn. That was at the height of the gentrification conversation. I was very cognizant of being an artist moving into a neighborhood that was being heavily gentrified and very aware of my responsibility and how I could make a positive effect in the neighborhood. Urban Bush Women has an amazing program called the Summer Leadership Institute; I was a part of it that summer with a gentleman named Atiba Edwards. Atiba had this event called “The Stoop” that was held in Fort Greene Park in downtown Brooklyn. The park is most notable because the South end is super gentrified, used to be a bad neighborhood, and now it is really fancy and businesses turned over really quickly because it got so expensive. On the North end, there are a lot of housing projects and remains a historically black neighborhood and is more racially diverse. “The Stoop” was meant to bring people from the North and South side together using the arts, having them interact in ways they may not have before because of this invisible wall created between the old and new Fort Greene. I thought that was a super cool idea, and then I thought about what that meant for me. I started looking at my own neighborhood, looking at the incredible brownstones in Bed-Stuy, and I had an idea that we could do this project on actual stoops in the city. I went to him with the idea, and he was like, “Yeah, go for it!” That was the inspiration behind “STooPS .” It’s become an annual art crawl featuring really amazing quality art from local artists. The impetus behind it is to unify the neighborhood in terms of neighbors, local businesses, visitors, and artists, by using arts as a catalyst for unification. For me, it was a way to integrate myself into the fabric of my new neighborhood. It forced me to get to know all the different entities that live in my neighborhood. Who are the gatekeepers? Those invested for a longtime, the newcomers? What is their impact?  That’s what “Stoops” is. We’ve had our annual art crawl for six years. I took a year off last year and we’re going to come back this year - I’m not sure when, of course, because of this pandemic. But I’m sure we’ll come back again and continue to do the work of presenting amazing local artists in unconventional spaces. 


Q: Do you believe dance can be a platform for social justice topics? If so, how? and/or Have you used your art form to make a difference?
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I use folklore as the basis for my choreographic work––to be specific, I pull a lot from yoruba-based folkloric dances. There’s Lucumi in Cuba, and it manifests in the US as Santeria. There is Candomble in Brazil; Vodou comes from the Afro-Haitian tradition. Those all come from a similar lineage. It’s interesting for me to see the stories of the entities that influence these dances and how these ideas play out in our everyday lives. The stories of the creation of some of these dances are still serving as sources of inspiration for us today. My last piece, “Silver Linings: Triumph of Loss” is about how we can change our perspective of loss, as opposed to focusing on what we lose and the sadness behind it. Not to dismiss the sadness, but asking, “How can we look at the beautiful things we gain as a result of the loss?” I started with these three specific folklore dance forms (hip-hop, the ring shout, and Petwo) which were created out of oppression and a sense of loss of freedom, identity, self, neighborhood. These ties between traditional folklore and how it is still important in our lives today interest me a lot. 
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All of these themes are still present in our society––I think they can help illuminate the pathway for us to create a better world. Social justice illuminates issues we have to pay attention to, and ways we can move ourselves towards a better world. I think art is at the forefront of social change. Every movement uses some type of art to motivate and inspire those that are fighting. It illuminates these issues to the masses. It allows us to mourn whatever is lost. I think social justice would not exist without art. 


What inspires you and drives you forward as an artist and a person?
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Curiosity. I really admire Liz Lerman and her processes. She works from a place of inquiry. Through art and dance specifically, I’ve been able to understand myself and my connections to people. I start every piece with a question. I try to allow the process of creating to answer that question for me, rather than come in with a preconceived notion of what it is. I try to be a channel to allow my ancestors and the divine to speak through me. Sometimes I come up with things, and I’m like, “Where did that come from? How did I produce that with my body?” Sometimes I don’t even know if I can even reproduce what just came out of my body! That makes me know there’s something else speaking through me. I also feel like I HAVE to dance. If I don’t, I’ll just go crazy. So maybe it’s a slight addiction. When I don’t dance, I don’t feel healthy, sane, or happy––I have to dance. 


How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you as a performing artist?
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Everything is halted right now. I worked for a number of years in arts administration. My last job was working as a participant coordinator for BAM for a show that was supposed to happen at the end of April. That show is cancelled, so my employment is cancelled. I was going to have “Stoops” host an event in June. That probably won’t happen either, or will have to be pushed back. Personally, I find it hard to plan with the uncertainty of everything that’s happening right now. My life is at a stand still. I wait day by day to figure out what is next. It’s a roller coaster of, “I’m going to be fine - I’m an artist and we’ve been making pathways forever, so we will continue,” to, “Oh my God! What is happening? My life is over!” I don’t know what’s going to happen. Ultimately, I need to turn to faith and just say that, no matter what, everything will be okay. Things may shift and change, but you are a creator, so you will create a way.


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.)
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I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I’ve been taking a lot of online dance classes and having conversations to fill the time. I think we’re seeing this interesting transition to art in the digital world. I think it’s important for us to utilize technology. There’s this dance teacher I love in California and I got to take her class, which was amazing. Of course, that’s not a substitute for the energy of being in the room with someone. I want to see the continuation of these connections that surpass distance. I want people to remember this time of isolation. I crave to be in a live performance, in a dance class, in a studio, creating with one another. There’s this balance between technology connecting us across long distances, and this intense desire to connect in person. I want to see this with artists and with people who have not yet fallen in love with art. I want new audiences and patrons eager to feel this energy so we can share it with one another. And of course, I want all the social justice issues we are fighting for to be resolved. What I’ve been focusing on lately is, how do we stay connected? Sometimes I miss being with people, but in another sense, I’ve been talking to family I never talk to on a normal basis, which is really special. I hope that being able to work remotely will make employers take that into account for folks who are disabled. Opening opportunities for people to be able to integrate into society in ways they may not physically or mentally have been able to do previously––that’s one good thing that might come of this.