Q: How did you begin your performing arts journey?

I grew up with an affinity for moving. I couldn’t stop, so my parents threw me into classes. Nothing stuck until I had a surgery on my legs. They broke my legs to straighten them out because I had severe twisting of my bones. For recovery, I started dancing full time at age 12. Then I decided dance would be what I do for the rest of my life. My senior year, I auditioned for “Cirque du Soleil” and made a slam dunk right away and got the job. That’s what has sailed me around the world and connected me to other wonderful artists and companies.


Q: What other interests and passions do you have outside of dance? Or what is something that inspires you to do your craft?
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It’s funny; now that we’re stuck inside, I’ve been remembering all the things I’ve put on the back burner, because dance has been my career for so long. Makeup design—the very theatrical clown designs they do at Cirque du Soleil—was one I met along my dance career. My makeup took me an hour to complete, and I did it for seven years, eight to ten times a week. I was honing that talent, the skill of makeup, so now I’ve been playing with all this makeup and challenging people online to play as well, and really enjoying it. Another thing is that we’re all having to cook. I really enjoy baking, especially pies. I would also say reading and writing, I love writing prose. I love spoken word poetry. It informs how I create, because I love movements that connect narrative and meaning. I’m reconnecting with writing now that I’ve been trapped inside. And because I’m a dancer, fitness is always important. I’ve been really focused on that through the years, helping myself recover from any injury I may have. There’s always something going on in the body you need to fix, so I’ve gotten really good at figuring out how to fix myself. In the future I’d like to do physical therapy or fitness training, specifically for dancers. 


Q: What have been some challenges in your pre-professional and professional career?
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I think one challenge is being consistent. It’s something I love, being spontaneous and having great premieres. But then, 300 shows later, you have to have the same energy and vitality you did at the beginning. That was a big challenge for me at the beginning of my career. Now I know that if I sign a two-year contract for a show I do over and over again, I have to fight all the way through to the end. Now that I know I can do it, I avoid contracts that keep me that long. What I really love to do is create pieces constantly throughout the year. I’m always changing the pattern of movement in my body. Injury comes with doing repetitive shows. Also a lack of feeling that you have family time, a life outside of the arts. This break has given me a reconnection to family—I just spent three hours on the phone with my mom and sister, which would never have happened. It used to be a 15 minute call to check up on them every now and then. Now that everyone’s inside, why not just talk forever, you know? That’s been a struggle I HAD and this plague turned it into a positive thing.


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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Absolutely. I’ve seen dance used to explore a lot of ideas around social justice. Sometimes the performing arts use a mirror to show society how they are treating women, people of color, or anyone through a violent portrayal of what’s really happening. I enjoy that because though it’s abrasive, it also wakes people up to the realities of these things they might not experience on a daily basis. The performing arts is key in that. I think it also shows that by being alive, artists can show the world how to be better, how to work together, how to unify through diverse inclusion of people of different races and abilities. The performing arts are a great example of collaboration between different mediums. From the technicians in the theater, to the front of house, to the back of house, to the dancers on stage, to the costume designers––it’s a complete community that comes together for one goal. That’s a great example of how the world can run and how we can operate with all these different abilities. Some things I don’t think work when it comes to social justice being portrayed on stage are when people yell from a pulpit to the audience. That turns people off. Although what they have to say is true and righteous, there are more effective ways of portraying these topics and getting points across. 


Q: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you as a performing artist? (community, financially, initial reactions, company shift, online class, emotions, initial cancellation reaction)
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Everything’s been cancelled for the next few months. The income I was going to have has been terminated, basically, which is unfortunate. I was excited to dive into some dance projects, one being a dance festival called “To the Sea” that was supposed to be on the Santa Monica pier at the end of April. I was supposed to premiere a new work and submit it to other companies to get commissioned to work with them. Now I have to find ways to create new work or keep the ideas in my head for later. It’s been scary. Will I ever be able to pay rent by dancing on stage? Will people come to theaters anymore? At this point it feels like, well, no. No one will want to sit next to someone they don’t know, especially in a dark room. I’m completely hoping I’m wrong, but I’ve been mulling over worst case scenarios for the last few weeks. It’s all been really strange. Hubbard Street’s dance studio closed and there’s been a lot of fear regarding the impact this is having on the performing arts. However, because of these limitations, the opportunities for creativity to flourish have increased. I think with limitation, we need to be more creative in how we share our work. Many companies have shared their work online for free. To study their work and just enjoy dance again has been really life-changing. I’m seeing work I probably wouldn’t have gotten to see live because of people’s generosity, and I think it shows the world how important dance is. I’ve been challenged to connect with my audience on Instagram to encourage them to be creative. I think it’s important to keep making stuff, whatever that is. Make something inside that you can bring to the stage later. Stay in the headspace of creating. That’s something I’ve stuck with all my life. I feel when I don’t create, I’m not doing my part in society.


Q: How do you think we can continue to create and share art during this time?

Oh, there are millions of ways. What’s so funny is that a couple of months ago, I remember the iPhone and social media being a demon. We were all saying that we were addicted — and now it’s our saving grace. It’s a way to see our family and share work, make work. There are so many opportunities with a cell phone, especially with visual art, to share your work online. One thing I am doing with Jacob Jonas the Company is a hashtag we created, #digitaldance. We partner with large arts institutions like Juilliard, Alvin Ailey, and Pilobolus Dance Theater. We send out dance creation tasks and people create a piece and share them online. It’s a great way to see people I wouldn’t have exposure to. It’s so wonderful seeing how fruitful it is to just give people the opportunity to make stuff. I find it easier and more fun to make work with others, so what I’ve been trying to do is take the things I do at home and figure out how to share them online with other people. It’s been so fun, because I don’t think I would have done it otherwise, which is so silly. There are so many challenges to do online now too. There is still so much work to be made, even if we’re apart. 


Q: What social changes and responsibilities have you seen people making during the pandemic? Do you think the pandemic will make us a more socially conscious society?

It’s interesting because everything is so full of juxtaposition. In order to help others we’ve had to stay away from others. And that’s a strange responsibility. It feels like that’s the opposite of trying to help. But in this case, the practice of social distancing is for other people’s sake, for other people’s lives. We’ve become more aware of community spaces and how precious they are, because now they’re all being closed down. I hope this brings awareness to these things we need to take care of when we get them back. I think a simple responsibility is checking in with your friends consistently to make sure they’re okay. I’ve expanded my reach past just my family and close friends to people who I’ve worked with. I think people feel responsible for more people, not just our closer circles. I’m seeing people take responsibility for showing gratitude to those who are working the hardest: health care workers, people who work in stores, mailmen, people who are still working. People are seeing how important those pieces of the puzzle are in our society.


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.)

It’ll be really tough. Because there will be fewer opportunities for work, I think a lot of people will be creating more opportunities for themselves. We won’t be driven by monetary gain but by a true and natural desire to make beautiful things, or things that speak to the heart of our complex human nature. Personally, my career has thankfully supported me for a long time financially. Sometimes I’m driven financially to do specific jobs. Now, because of the lack of those jobs, I feel like I’ll just do what I’m made to do. The community will come together and work together without the hierarchy of high art and low art. I think we’ll expand our awareness of each other and create more opportunities for each other without this limitation of finances. Sometimes money and how you get it can be as limiting as not having it. Right now, arts organizations are losing so much money, closing here and there, and artists are going to have to become true artists again. We’ll have to make work for the sake of making work. In a beautiful world, our government would bail us out all these organizations and they would pay us to make wonderful work at the end of this... But I think it will be bleaker than that.