I just try to approach every opportunity on stage, as if it's my first time and my last time.

The higher you go up in rank, usually the longer you can dance.

I remind myself everyday just how lucky I am to do what I love! I feel so fortunate and I'm just trying to take my life one day at a time.

Just to get into a company like ABT is a dream come true, but to have all of these opportunities on top of it, I don't think it will hit me until I'm 70. I'll be like, "Oh, my god, remember that amazing life you had?" It's an incredible honor to be a part of something like ABT.

I absolutely love what I do. And I want to dance for as long as I can and feel good about what I'm putting out there on the stage. But my goal has always been to be a principal dancer with ABT. Before I knew that there had never been a black woman, that was always my goal. I wanted to dance Odette-Odile and Kitri and "Don Quixote" and Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty." So that's still my goal. But knowing that it's never been done before, I think makes me fight even harder.

Ballet was exactly what I was searching for, but my environment definitely made me the dancer and the person that I am today. And the Hip-Hop culture was a big part of it.

There are muscles that we have in our feet that most human beings don't even know that we have. The strength that we have is so detailed.