When people meet me in person, they're usually surprised at how petite I am because there's just [an] idea that because I'm black I just look a certain way.

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 was aware of my race from a very young age. Not in a negative way. Coming from an interracial background, I think it is important to understand who you are.

I do think that it's a responsibility when there are so few of us as African Americans to kind of get to that place of success in a positive light. We should take a stance and stand for something and use that platform for positivity.

I haven’t come from the typical path or background of someone who would make it to this level as a ballerina. When it came to my childhood-growing up in a single-parent home, often struggling financially-my mother definitely instilled in me and my siblings this strength, this will, to just continue to survive and succeed.

I never knew I wanted to become a ballerina. I was discovered at the age of 13. I had a love for movement even though I had no exposure to dance other than what I saw in music videos, like hip-hop music videos. But I knew that I loved moving.

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."