Everything I was being shown was ABT, so I grew up watching these videos of [Mikhail] Baryshnikov, Gelsey [Kirkland] and Paloma [Herrera]. Paloma and Angel [Corella] were the first people I ever saw dance live.

I just want to leave a positive memory of setting an example and bringing our youth with us.

In a ballet company, you're trying to create unison and uniform when you're in a cour de ballet.

I don't feel like my life is that of a superstar! Every day I wake up, I take the train, I go to my ballet class. My everyday life is pretty normal.

You're always working to improve, and you're always being critiqued on your next performance. It's not about what you've done. There's always room to grow.

You can dream big and it doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from.

The fact that I was African American was never addressed, and that allowed me to just be a student, like anyone else. I was not aware of how rare it was to be an African American, how rare it was to have four years of training under my belt, and how, even though I could imitate people and fake it, unprepared I was to become a professional.