Those people that don't see the power in art maybe have never been a part of an art, in a real way. To experience it, and to see and witness how it affects people, we're not doing it just to create professionals. It's to add another dimension to the way that children think and the way they experience certain things. If you didn't have dance, music and singing, it just seems so odd to me.

I definitely like to be natural and more relaxed and not wear a lot of makeup.

When you see the body outside of a costume and see the strength that it takes, people would look at dance a different way and see how athletic it is. You're not just born like that.

To have a platform like So You Think You Can Dance, where you're reaching this audience that's been created over the 10 years that they've been on the air. People who didn't know anything about dance and aren't going to go to the theater are learning about it, even if it's ballroom and jazz, by just turning their television ono. They're building this audience that's advanced and educated enough to introduce them to ballet.

What makes people and companies and artistic directors and choreographers interested in working with dancers is the ability to kind of let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas.

Going on stage and doing ballet, for the first time, was even more verification of, "This is what I'm meant to do. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make it somehow."

The word "prodigy" was thrown around a lot, but I didn't understand what that meant, or the weight of it. It didn't really mean anything to me, until I was older and could look back on it.