“I was gifted a 6x6 medium format camera by my high school photo teacher. We were at the Getty, and we were looking at a photo, and I cried. A) My work is never going to look like this. B) I know this is film because it has a look and none of my digital photos could touch this. C) I was crying because I was upset thinking that I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of digital photos and they still can’t touch this. Why? I was questioning everything, having an existential crisis. She [high school teacher] asked me, ‘Do you have a medium format camera that shoots film? I have one in storage; you can have it.’”

I didn’t know I was going to be a dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker; it was a desire. It all started in theatre. I couldn’t speak English so I started with mime and movement. The dream was to dance but I always thought I was too late. By the time I went to dance school, I was 24, so I had to catch up with everyone else. Once you put your mind to it, even if you break something, you go ahead and do it.

It was a surreal and full-circle moment because as a little girl, and a little girl of color, the pinnacle was always dancing for the Ailey company…. Then coming back and now teaching the company, running rehearsals, and setting choreography on the company and some dancers that I have been idolizing since I was a young girl… I had to really get my nerves together the first time I walked into the room because it was just unbelievable. The goal was to get in the room with them not knowing that I would be at the front of the room.

He said it was about patience and I thought that art was always a thing about patience and it didn’t matter that it hurt you, it was about the outcome of this beautiful thing. I fell in love with the process despite being so uncomfortable with it. I started drawing from there, then I realized I could sculpt things, which was even better because I could create things with polymer clay - things I saw in my dreams that I could bring to life. I could do anything, I was unstoppable.