I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults.

I believe that this world was set about for us to enjoy and to love and to experience and to have it all be, to a certain extent, unpredictable. Ever since I was a child I have believed that my life has been guided.

You don't enter a dance studio and say "I can't do that." If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?

Maybe its a generational thing, but I never wanted to be the best black dancer in the world. I just wanted to be the best.

Every dancer lives on the threshold of chucking it.

I have been guilty of watching Westerns without acknowledging that Native Americans have gone through the same madness as African Americans. Isn't it extraordinary that sometimes the most offended have not seen others being offended?

Dancing is a gift. You are supposed to do it; it's like breathing.