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.

Take advantage of the resources around you and the relationships you build!

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.

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

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

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.

For me, I was in school and I pushed myself to be a good student, just because that's the type of person I was, but I never had a connection to any of it. I don't think my brain functioned in a way that was at its height, when I was in school. I needed something like art to really value the way my mind works. I wasn't reaching my full potential by sitting in a classroom and reading from a book. My mind didn't work that way.