Nicholas Isaiah King Rose. That’s one hell of a name.

Yeah, I know, right? Actually, a lot of people ask, is it a fake name? I was like, no, actually, my mom’s last name is King, and my dad’s name is Rose. It just so happened to be. 

Yeah, sure, you can never have enough names.

You really can’t.

One of our signature starting question is, which cartoon character would you like to be?

That’s so interesting, I never really thought about it until recently when I was watching a remake of a Netflix show that used to be a cartoon and comic, and it’s Black Lightning. Growing up, I never really connected to lots of cartoons because there were never cartoon characters that looked like me. And so when I saw this TV show and then went back and looked at the cartoons in the comics, I was like, oh, wait, this is actually super inspiring. And I’m Super happy also that there’s other young black kids that can look up to someone who resembles them. 

So, I must say Black Lightning mostly because one, he is able to work hard, but he also not only is the principal of a school, but he’s also fighting off the evils in the night. So that’s something I feel like I literally do in different variations, of course. And I cannot shoot lightning out of my hand. Yet. But I think this definitely is a character that I feel like I can relate to in lots of different ways with having a lot of responsibility, but also knowing that I’m a human being as well and I have human being characteristics. And I’m also okay with being a human being.

What is something silly that you love doing?

Something silly that I love doing. Interesting. I do a lot of silly things, honestly. But I must say, one is I love to play like really upbeat, like hip hop music when I wake up in the morning and I like to dance like a fool when I say it’s like no ballet steps, just like the goofiest thing that you can think of. That’s something I really like to do and I like to not only do it in my alarm time, sometimes I’ll do it when I’m waiting for the trains and I’ll do it just in my passing time. I really like to just enjoy listening to music that I love.

Techno music, but I also love all genres of music and so even sometimes I’ll play classical music and dance to it like I’m at a techno party. That’s pretty funny actually just to hear how the tempo four counts as four counts no matter what you’re playing or what device you’re playing on. So yeah, it’s amazing.

I would love to see some of these videos.

Videos to come.

Talking about “being on stage”. Is there a ritual you do before the curtain opens? That very moment?

Yes, before the curtain opens, I like to,

• one – have a large glass of water because with anxiety that happens naturally before show or excitement or adrenaline you tend to forget that you need to be drinking water. So, I like to make sure that I have a glass of water or a bottle of water next to me and I take a few good chugs.
• Two- I like to also say a prayer because not only for my protection and my health on stage but I also like to think about people in my family who have passed away or really close friends who have passed away and I dedicate a lot of these performances to them first and foremost. 

Yes, I do this for myself, but I have nothing more than a mirror vessel to express and show the world what art is and because it lives inside of me, I like to also think of the people who helped me get there too. So, I like to always think about my grandfather, close friends from childhood, things like this. And this makes it kind of brings me from the exact situation I’m in and kind of allows the adrenaline and all the nervousness to go away because I’m focusing on a bigger picture. So it’s really important that I guard myself before I go on stage and this is a really great way for me to do that.

That’s beautiful. Do you dedicate sometimes a specific show to one specific member or?

I just started thinking of a ballet maybe two months ago and it will be a solo dance but it’s dedicated to my older brother who passed away when I was younger and so I’m finally just now starting to find different ways of healing with using the things that I’m gifted with. This is definitely something that I’ve thought about and can finally take steps towards accomplishing.

If you have the chance to create your own show. What would it be about?

Oh, that’s so interesting. A lot of people tell me you need to have your own TV show. And sometimes I think about it, too. I’m like, Jeez, we need a camera crew in here. But I think it will probably be about the life of being an artist, but also the life that just because I’m an artist doesn’t mean that I’m a human being first. And so, I feel like it’s really interesting. I would definitely have a show based on that and have different contestants in different areas of the arts kind of do background on their lives. That’s not just related to their art area, but it will show how the arts influence their natural born life and how their natural born life influence their arts lives, too. So, people can probably drop the stigma about dancers and musicians. Just wake up in the morning, just do this, and they don’t have a life. We very much still have lives. We just choose to live them differently than the next person. And so, I think that’ll be very interesting to show.

That’s amazing. I can’t wait to watch that show. 
How much personal creativity can you express within your performance?

Yes. Firstly, when I’m learning a ballet, I actually try to not bring too much of my personal life into it because I try to keep it very cut and dry, learning the steps, learning the musicality, and learning how they work together. And usually at the end of our period before performance, this is when I like to incorporate my personality. And so first and foremost, naturally, I’m a very expressive person. So, when I’m dancing, I’m not going to look deadpan. I’m always going to dance with vivacity enthusiasm for dance because it’s my life really a big part of my life. And so first I like to compartmentalize everything and go one step at a time, different components that’s a little bit less inclined towards expressing emotion. And then I like to incorporate my motion into it because first I have to see what I’m doing, listen to the music, and I like to also listen to the music outside of rehearsals so I can understand and connect to it better where I wouldn’t have time really to do it in the studio. Since we’re just learning step, step, step

spacing, spacing, all of this, that’s pretty much my regimen for doing a ballet, learning it and performing it, and also learning that I treat my rehearsals like they are almost performances or like a dress rehearsal in a way where I have full intention to everything I do. But I’m also not going to be hard on myself. And I don’t take things personally in a room because things change always.

And this is the only thing that is the fact things are always going to change. So I like to not write scripts. I draw conclusions about how something will feel. There are times when I’ll be doing a ballet that I absolutely hate. When the time comes to perform it, I’ll somehow absolutely fall in love with the ballet. I don’t try to also form too heavy emotional attachments to what I’m doing, because there are also ballets that I love so much and by 

the time to perform them, I hate them, like Nutcracker. Do you always give, like, full 100% at the rehearsals? Yes, I do. All in? Yeah. Actually, when I first started dancing at DTH Dance Theatre of Harlem, there was a saying that the ballet master, ballet mistress, rehearsal directors are always saying. full out with feeling and face, meaning, the feeling has to be there. You have to be full out dancing everything to your greatest capability. Obviously, when we’re learning something and they ask us to Mark not do anything, fall out, that’s one thing. But when they ask us to run something, this is your opportunity to do it for yourself, to see what it feels like. You’re not going to know how something feels until you literally do it. And with face, that doesn’t mean putting on a fake face, but that means allowing your face to also be part of the dance, too, and knowing that all parts of your body is included. And a lot of the times, you can tell a lot about how a person is liking something or not liking something based on their facial expressions and my very expressive face. I naturally just like, let the music guide me. And I really like to focus on the music because this has a really big … this guides me emotionally throughout what I’m doing. And also psychologically.

There are lots of disturbing issues out there, especially with teenage students in the dance world. What is a positive relationship with food and body issues? 

Yes. Well, I started first at Harrod Conservatory in Boca at 15. Then at 17, I moved to California. And when I was 15, I was in a boarding school, at Harrod, which actually was not necessarily the healthiest in regards to how we dealt with our eating habits. And when people are saying goodbye to their parents and their family and their childhood to go and maintain a spot in a very vigorous ballet program, a lot of people do not know what to do next because we’re young. 

And so as young people are very impressionable. And so we do listen to things that we’re told. And if a teacher is telling you that you’re too big or too fat, I’m not trying to. First of all, the fact that teachers are just body shaming their students is an issue. But the fact that they are looking at it as a way to try to help inform them about the healthiest way to go about living your life and also having a full stomach, it can go from being really good to really bad. 

The potential of having a good teacher is there, but it’s very hard to find and so I know for a fact, when I was 15, 16, eating disorders immediately started in regards to the people around me, other students, and just overall how we viewed our relationship to food. And so I knew that that was unhealthy. But when you’re locked in there and you’re in a boarding school and you can’t necessarily go home every day that you want, you have different coping strategies. Also with just anxiety of being in a school that is so competitive. 

And I’m not a competitive person. So when you’re not competitive in a competitive environment, it really affects you, and that also affects what you eat and when you’re hungry and your appetite, et cetera. And so later down on the road, when I left to go to Colburn Dance Academy, it was run by a wonderful woman named Jennifer Ringer, who was a principal dancer in the New York City Ballet up until, I believe, year 2014 when she retired. And she had danced in the company since she was 16.

 She wrote an amazing book called Dancing Through this. And in this book, she talks about what it was like to be at a school American Ballet, and then what it was like to be in the New York City Ballet from a young age and also what it was like to deal with eating disorders such as not eating or overeating, etc. And so to look at her story and listen to what she was saying in class, it was super inspiring because I was in her class and also reading her book. At the same time, a second teacher on the faculty names of poor Cars, was a soloist with the New York City Ballet as well, who got in at a very young age. 

She found out that she had type one diabetes right when she got into the company, she didn’t know how to deal with it because there was no one that was sitting there helping her. So you’re left to your own device in a big company and you’re a little fish in a really big ocean, and you’re basically being asked to get it all together on your own time and put on good performances, which is super difficult to do mentally, physically, emotionally, all of it. And so during that year, we were really talking about what it is to be body positive, not only to yourself, but for teachers to have a body positive input. And when they’re talking to students about eating. 

And so I learned that later on, food affects everything in your life, and you need to have it, and you need to have energy to sustain yourself in a healthy way. So I know what it’s like to be nervous for an audition and say, oh, I need to not only look but feel fit. So if I feel fit, maybe I’ll just eat less, or maybe I’ll just drink more water and less food, etc. And then I’ll be getting really light headed, and why am I feeling so light-headed? And then later on, when I became professional, I look back and I’m like, oh, well, that’s why we’re not eating properly. And so the food has a big impact on your mind. It’s not that you should go cold Turkey on junk food and etc. You should actually enjoy these foods too if your heart is calling for it.

You have to have the right balance.

Exactly. You must have the right balance. And so later on,

I had a life coach in the pandemic after I had finished actually at the end part of my time in the National of Canada, who used to formally be a dancer in National Ballet and also is now a dancer at the Alonzo King Lines Ballet in San Francisco. She said to me, Nicholas, it’s not always about the food that you’re eating, but it’s about who you are while you are eating that food. I was like, oh, my God, life shattering facts. So I had to understand who am I and what is my intention and how do I want to feel 2 hours from now and then go with that? 

It’s difficult because we have habits, etc. But it’s actually quite nice when you’re not being asked to immediately break all your habits that day of and know that you can just make small changes. And over time, you then begin to become appreciative of the way that you’re eating your food and also appreciative of the way you’re feeling after eating the food becomes worth it, really in the long run. I would also hope that nutrition should be a subject in the school.  

That is super important. It should be picked up in the curriculum. Exactly. One of the biggest saving graces and being a boarding school was having nutrition classes. When I was in boarding school in Florida, though we had wonderful nutrition classes, we’re also then going to the ballet room, to the studio, and we’re being told so many things about our bodies and what to eat and what not to eat. And so it causes us to lay more trust in our ballet teachers who some of them have had trauma. 

Most of them have had trauma, or they’ve had different ways of dancing. So if you have a Russian ballet teacher who’s danced their whole life at the Kirov Ballet, the Mariinskij Ballet, they’re not going to tell you to eat a certain way as compared to a nutritionist whose profession is to help young people or adults eat properly, to sustain themselves in their career. And so there’s different perspectives and different timelines which people are putting in your brain, and it’s up to you to really choose what should stay in your ear and what needs to exit the other ear. 

But there’s also, like a generation switching right now. So I think that will also help. Like those mentioned teachers, I guess they’re a little bit old school. They have like an Apple. That’s it. Yeah. Nowadays. Exactly. People know how to Google. 

Yeah, exactly. I think that will come up with a switch. Do you have any advice for, let’s say, hobby dancers that wants to make the step into a professional world? What does it take to be a professional dancer? I think it takes a lot of guts and determination and you cannot think about anybody else, really in regards to getting there. You can’t layer trust in the opinions of other people because regardless, damned if you don’t, people are going to talk. 

So one thing I would say is find a trusted circle of friends who can support you in this. For me, it was definitely having mentors as a student and having teachers that I can confide in that were able to give me this objective perspective because when you’re in this world and in this bubble, it becomes very hard to look outside of the bubble and just take a peek. And so it’s really important to have a circle of people. They don’t even necessarily have to be dancers, but a lot of them should really be people who are supportive. 

I know some of my greatest supports didn’t even know what demi plie was, but it’s really about the act of perseverance. And you can take a lot of things that relate to all different aspects of life and work life and apply it to so many different things in your dance life. So one thing is trusting the people that are willing to put their neck on the line for you, and this is super important. I would also say study your work, study what you’re doing, take the extra time outside of the rehearsal space and do as much research as you can. I remember vividly being in school between 15 to 18 years old, always every day watching either an interview of ballet dancers or watching ballet myself. 

Just by sitting and watching. You can learn so much and by listening to interviews of dancers, you can also hear about the not so perfect beautiful sides that we see at the Ballet Theater and the Showtime. So I think it’s really important to educate yourself on not only the good but also the bad and also the neutral things of ballet, the objective things that we know we have to deal with and step into without necessarily having a choice to control what’s going on. So I’d say these are the most important things for me. 

Have you ever met dancers that didn’t came the the traditional route through this hard schools and so on? 

Yes, certainly. I met myself. I’ve met different dancers who have started at very latter ages. Misty Copeland, who was the principal dancer with American Ballet Theater first African American ballerina to become the principal dancer in ABT. I met her actually while I was living in New York City, and we met actually on the street because I was walking with my friend who was in the corp de ballet at the time, apprentice, actually, she was going to the ballet and she was bring me there. And we bumped into Misty Copeland and actually Misty Copeland mentors this young dancer Erica Lall. And she’s a wonderful star of American Ballet Theater now and most certainly provides her through the ranks through time. 

But just to get to talk to her and connect with her and see how humble she is, but also doing my research after meeting her about her story and looking at her interviews just from being a child up till now, you can see that has nothing to do with what people are telling you to do. It has to do with what your heart is telling you to do. And she had all the odds stacked up against her regards to her family, her homelife, her ballet life, and all of it. 

And she let go of all of this and went straight for her dream. And so this is super inspiring to read about and do proper research about, to understand really what it is to live a life that is unconventional to what buying people would think is supposed to not really be in the room because most people come from a very privileged lifestyle and background and people assume that you can only have this type of lifestyle to be in the ballet when in reality that’s just not the case. So I would definitely say Misty Copeland. For me, I started out as a musician playing cello, started with violin at five switches at seven, and then started ballet at eleven years old, which is traditionally a late start. 

But between eleven and 15 years old, I was really poorly trained actually, and I wasn’t given the amount of time to study properly since I was also dealing with public school schedule. And so at 15, I just start over from absolute scratch. Literally, they broke down the whole sculpture and restarted from the very beginning. So I definitely know what it’s like to be in the room where everyone else is technically better than you. But I also knew that instead of being jealous or looking at them as a way like, oh, they’re better than me, must be a better human than me, or have more dedication to me. That has nothing to do with it. It has to do with the cards that were being dealt. So I used them as inspiration. I was being inspired by my fellow classmates looking at things that I wanted to accomplish and asking them questions about how they accomplish it. 

This is the best way, actually, by asking questions and listening to what they have to say. You get all these different informed perspectives and everyone has so much knowledge and everyone also in the room knows something that the next person doesn’t know. So what Henry at one side of the barre may know, the other girl whos also fabulous dancer, may not have any clue about but she can also see Henry, something that he may not know at all. So actually by just being open and in a receiving mode for information, this helps so much.

Did you ever experience or did some students gave you a hard time, especially because you are a newcomer and you’re traditionally trained? Yes, of course. Especially with the age of 15 until I was 17 from when I started ballet, I was not actually bullied by people that were not in the dance program. I was bullied by people that were in the dance program and teachers in the dance program. And so I’ve had teachers mock me. I’ve had teachers mock my dancing. I’ve had teachers laugh at me. I’ve had teachers tell me to quit. I’ve had teachers telling me to give up. It’s never going to work out because of your skin tone. You should just go to traditional African style dancing and commercial dance because it’s very hard. And I remember like literally laughing in their faces. Actually when I look back at it, that was actually super bold to just comfortably laugh at their faces.

That was in LA ?

No, in La it’s just when I started getting the respect from teachers. Yeah, it was in Harrod when I would be told by my director, if you decide that you want to become a professional dancer, you cannot leave the school or you’re going to become nothing. You’ll float into the dust like the rest of people who never finish the school. So to put you in such an uncomfortable position and manipulation for you to become so dependent on something that’s so unhealthy and other students always constantly body shame me. Oh, your butt is too big, your thighs are so fat. Your lines are not proportionate little that I know I actually have a wonderful body for ballet and it’s not really about having an ideal body or whatever they teach you about having an ideal body. You have a ballet body by having a body and doing ballet, period. Everything else is up to you. 

The fitness and the maintenance and everything and how you eat. That is all coming from yourself really. All has to do with how determined you are to give yourself the best look that you desire for yourself. And as long as you’re looking good for yourself, then naturally people will look at you in a different way. And it was because I wasn’t feeling good about myself. Also, people were seeing this vulnerability and pulling the strings on this vulnerability. And so I had to really reorganize the way I thought about myself in my relationship with ballet and learned that it’s about the music and it’s about the dance. And focusing on this created so much more space for me to focus on myself. Nicholas in ballet versus how people viewed how it looked like in ballet. True. 

What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people of the industry doing? 

Okay, at first, I was going to say not listen to the dancer, but it can go deeper than that. I think that the biggest mistake people have in the interest in regards to teachers and students or rehearsal directors or directors and dancers or choreographers and dancers is not actually providing the space for people to have questions, just simple things as in asking this, like say if you are giving someone choreography or talking about discipline within the ballet room, you’re not giving anyone a chance to not only process that because you’re going long ongoing, but a question of saying, does anyone have any questions? 

Or what questions do you have? Because does anyone have any questions kind of implies that no one would really have any questions. And then that puts people in like a really kind of uncomfortable state of mind of, I don’t want to be the only one to ask this question. Is it a stupid question? But by saying what questions you have, is all these acknowledging, I know you all have questions, what are they? Because there are always questions to be asked in the ballet world, in all music, art industries. And so I think that really just the framing of how you ask questions. Providing space for people to literally ask questions is the first step. And a lot of people don’t believe that have been conditioned to think dancers are supposed to be seen and not heard. And this is the most abusive, toxic mindset to implement into a young student. 

And so I think that we need to be seen and heard and acknowledged and developed dialogue, uncomfortable dialogues, even taboo dialogues that most people don’t feel comfortable talking about. 

How do you think we can? Oh, not we. I mean, how do you think you guys can be heard more? 

 

We can be heard by speaking up and actually standing our feet in the ground, but also communicating with your fellow comrades in the studio or on your off time. I do know that a lot of situations that have risen come from me, actually. They’re sitting down with other dancers and talking about situations like this. And from that you get the confidence to actually speak up, knowing that there’s going to be other people behind you and also having open conversations about these type of subjects before bringing them to the attention of the people who are at the front of the room. Because majority of people at the front of the room are not used to talking about type of subjects or they’ll be facing some sort of retribution or be labeled as someone who is a troublemaker or whistleblower, et cetera. 

And so one thing is develop your community of the file that you have, because odds are most people in the room are thinking the same thing but don’t have necessarily the courage to speak up about it, but by just talking about it, by literally allowing words to come anymore about this subject, it can ignite so many different conversations and dialogues in private. And I think that we take advantage of using our off time to talk to other people who are in the same room as you. That’s super important to form a real community. I believe so. 

 

Compared to when you were a student, how does your goals or dreams look like today? 

 

Interesting. Good question. Because when I was in boarding school, I had the idea in my head, okay, I really want to be in a classical ballet company. And then when I retire, I want to play cello in the Orchestra pit for whatever ballet company I dance for. Boy, has that changed. Wow, Nicholas. But I must say, as time has developed, I’ve learned so many different things about myself and actually what I really like. I didn’t realize that I would be a ballet teacher until I started dancing, my first company that paid me to dance. So when I was 18, I lived in Ohio and danced for a small contemporary company called Verb Ballet, and it was a Repertory company. 

We were not the highest paid. It did not have a huge budget. The arts are not necessarily as highly recognized as other major cities in the country. And so you had to find many different ways in order to make your ends meet. And so that year I learned about the importance of checks and balances. And that year, the director told me, Nicholas, alive that answers teach. So I don’t know if that’s something you’d be interested in, but you should try it. I said, you know what? Why not? 

Because I learned the year before that most teachers who are dancing get better at dancing by teaching. Having to reiterate and break down everything for a student also helps subconsciously teach themselves. So that year, my ballet technique actually got better from teaching simply because I was able to take time to talk to the eight year olds and nine year olds, the ten year olds about what a tendu is. And then the next morning, I’m in class thinking about what I was teaching them. And I’m like, oh, wait, I’m actually polishing myself with the assistance, of course, the teacher at the front of the room. 

But I was able to have different dialogues. And it went from having self defeated mindset from time to time and being too hard on myself to really just saying, how can I use this time to actually teach myself again? And when I first started, I was thinking, how am I am I going to be left to my own device? How am I going to keep improving? A lot of it comes from training myself to a certain extent and also allowing others to give input as to what they’re seeing and how it could get better. That really was the biggest turnover, learning about the teaching and then also choreographing because there was opportunities in the studio. 

When I was teaching to choreograph so one day the teacher went to me, hey, we got to do Nutcracker. Can you put together a waltz of the flowers? I was like, well, waltz of flowers. I think it’s like 13 minutes or something. But somehow I took 25 students, 25 female identifying students, and they were on point shoes and flat shoes, and I made a creation. I had no clue that I would actually be good at this, but I also didn’t forget my relationship to music and particularly my deep love for Tchaikovsky. I was listening to the score. I was reading the score because when I was younger, I was taught how to read all the instruments on a score. So if you look at it, the choreography is literally in the music notes. It’s literally in the incidentals, the tempo is literally set. And so it’s really a matter of formations going through an A section, B section, C section, AB section, whatever section. 

You go through all of these different ways that you can get to a destination. And this was exciting for me about the fact that, yes, there is the artistic part, but there is a very high level amount of science and math that goes into this. And so by looking at what I wanted to do in my imagination and then looking at the score, seeing things musically and mathematically, how things add up, you’re able to put these together and come up with something really wonderful and also allowing the kids in front of you to be inspired and being inspired by the students a lot by looking at their capabilities and what they’re good at and what they need more improvement in. So I put both things in there. 

I would give them things that they’re good at, but I would also give them any improvement in a lot of things. Incorporating with class, you have to make sure that your class is relative to the repertoire that you’re dancing on stage. Otherwise it’s going to be such a disconnect. Someone could look so good in class and have such weird performances simply because they’re not given the class that they actually need to help them with the repertoire. So from doing something with both of ours, I’ll give them something a little more classical, something that has to do with a lot more big poses. Accentuation and holding of positions, too. 

There’s lots of moments when ladies will be on the side or more position, but this teaches them about body stamina and isometric, strengthening what it is to hold position and knowing that it will get stronger simply by staying put and holding a position, not just forcing them to position and becoming stagnant, but still being a living, breathing human being while in a position. So there’s constant breath that’s flowing into the stage and into the rehearsal space. How do you keep fit? What is your fitness routine? Also, especially now, there are some days where we are not having the regular job anymore. So what do you do for yourself to keep that level? Well, I would say from when I started dancing professionally up until when I was in Canada, I was finding a lot of time to work out that home alone. Actually, before I would go into the Ballet studio, I would do a mixture of Pilates and yoga, because doing too much Pilates would tire me out. And doing yoga would not make me feel like my muscles are firing as much. 

So to have the balance is nice because not only working on strength, you’re also working on stretching out the things that the muscles that you’ve strengthened. And so for me, I really like to use this beforehand and not necessarily for a long period of time, like a solid 30 minutes or 20 minutes, something that just gets your body moving gives me all the inspiration I need to get out the door and know that I’ll be able to get into a ballet class and continue because I also live far away from the studio. Sometimes I would have to somehow warm up my body a little bit knowing that I may make it there right before class starts. And so I need to make sure that I have some sort of mobility that has already started versus going in super supermarket cold and then taking it from there.

 I also like to do random cardio. In high school, my friends and I, my last year at school, all of the classmates that I had ended up becoming really nice. We had a really nice relationship. We’ve been in a group to do the seven minute workout challenge, get an app, jumping Jacks for 30 seconds, push us for 25 seconds. Just something that gets your body moving and get your muscles firing. I learned later because before that, before living in California, I was living in Florida this boarding school. And we always thought, okay, the best way to get warm by stretch, stretch, shaker, yank, yank, yank. 

Then I realized I was doing my research from scientists who have really spoken about the fact that you’re making yourself about 30% weaker when you’re just stretching out your muscles and not strengthening them. So that’s when I really then the following year got into doing a lot of cardio. And so after ballet class is when I would stretch because your body is warm and able and ready to do whatever may come in regards to what you need to stretch out. Also, we’ll let you know about the things that you genuinely need to stretch out, because do classes naturally do stretch out certain muscles and you are then put in a better state of mind, honestly, from doing physical activity for an hour, 15 minutes to an hour and a half.

 And so for me, it’s definitely this. And also, I always like to practice my partnering skills on the side or just trying to repeat things as much as my partner would allow and as much as my body would allow, because by lifting people above your head, I find myself actually never going to the gym. I would take advantage of this and work on certain lifts that were above head. And so I don’t see a difference between bench pressing 100 pounds or pressing a woman over your head. That’s 100 or 110 pounds. It doesn’t really matter. I think it’s also wonderful to form a connection with someone and it’s also really empowering to be able to lift people over your head with the coordination that’s given this has made me very strong. 

A lot of people even here in Berlin asked me, how did you get your body like that? What gym do you go to? I was like, honestly never gone to a gym more than four times in my life. I use the ballet to work out and I use my free time doing Pilates and stuff to strengthen myself and also having a good mindset about how I view my body and loving my body. This makes a very big impression on how your body reacts to your thoughts. 

Do you have any tips for the younger generation? How they could start training beside the school? 

Most certainly improve. I would say talk to your parents about what you want to do. First of all, to have a clear communication with your parents about what your goals are, even if they don’t agree with them, you should still have this conversation. And if your parents are not willing to support you in this see, both my parents supported me not financially all the time, but definitely emotionally, psychologically helping me get ready for a lot of things. Way more important, most certainly. And I never actually questioned if they were able to financially support me or not because they were giving me something that a lot of parents didn’t give them emotional attention and support, which is super important because you’re not necessarily always getting that into ballet school. 

And so in regards to introducing just this goal that you have in your imagination and your body and your soul and what you want to do, it’s also super important that you do a lot of research on looking at what you’re doing, looking at what you want to do, find someone who you look up to. By finding someone, it doesn’t mean the person is going to pop into your head. Do research of not only dancers, but dancers who look like you from when I started doing ballet, I found myself looking at predominantly white dancers and wondering, oh my God, why don’t I have a lifestyle like that? I didn’t want to have a lifestyle like that to be on the site. Actually. 

I think I just wanted to get to the level of admiration, I guess. But little did I know that admiration has to literally come from yourself first. And also finding black dancers to do things that are doing wonderful work on stage and outside of the stage, too. When I was 16 is when I first saw Dance theatre of Harlem. Before that, I had never seen a group of black people dancing on pointe in a turned out position. And so this sparked the whole idea in my head about what can be done and what I can accomplish, being the person I am with the identity that I carry, definitely not only just looking at what you want to do, but looking at the people and their identities and what they’re doing and how they got to where they are. 

Very important topic. Now let’s see if this question is hard or very easy. Why are you dancing? 

Okay, actually, I had a really wonderful mentor who passed away at the beginning of COVID, and he was actually a German born citizen and moved away right before World War II because he wanted to pursue a career in the arts. So he made his way to New York City and became one of the most hailed ballet teachers and Masters in the world. His name is Wilhelm Burmann, and in one interview he said he’s like, you know, I was a mover before I was a dancer. I fully agree with him. This was my experience. I was always moving my body whether music was playing or whether I was given a step to do or not. 

Before I was in class, I was always doing creative movements. And so for me, ballet was just a channel in which I could put this movement. And for me, it was really about looking also at the musical side of it. I think as dancers, the next best thing to dancing to the music is being able to play the music. And I was playing the classical music before I was dancing and vice versa. I think the best thing aside from dancing is being able to play the music you’re dancing to. And I had come from a history of playing the music that I ended up dancing to. 

So I thought it was really amazing that at some point in my life before I was dancing, I was playing music that I ended up dancing to later on in my career. I thought that was so phenomenal or watching ballets that were being done where I was playing the music and I was developing such a connection with just going to watch ballets and watching my colleagues dance. Seeing them dance to music that is dear to my heart and seeing how they express themselves to the music is amazing actually. You’re seeing so many different points of views and how music is received to the human ear. So this was for me, I feel very blessed to be gifted with two talents that are so complimentary to one another. Yeah. You started with five with the violin.

 Yeah. Hated it. Hated it. I don’t know what it was about it, but it just didn’t feel natural to me. And then when I was six, the teacher played the violin, Viola, cello and bass for us and said, Next year, if you guys want to, you can pick an instrument that you want that is not the violin. And I remember after she played a little bit of Sonata and C Major by Jean Baptiste Breval, I remember this song, actually, from six years old. I remember being like, I want to play that song. I want to play this instrument. She’s like, okay, well, you have to literally be patient. Okay? 365 days later, I was like, I’m patient. It’s been one year, so when can I buy the cello? 

So she first started to give me a little lessons in school. And then eventually I got to take the cello home. And I was practicing hours and hours and hours of point. My mom was like, you have to eat food. But eventually I got it together. I was able to find balance with my work life, my dance life in school, and my music. And I was extremely happy still am to this day. And so the cello has been a driving force, and the dance has been a compliment to this driving force and also became another one of my lifelong passions. 

And how did you make them the connection, really? We heard in the intro that you put the cello playing into a ballet context. What is the connection there? 

So when I first was playing cello, I was in a Suzuki school, and it was a very prestigious high level school. And I had a very amazing cello teacher, which actually he was an amazing cellist. What he told me was important, but I also felt that he was holding me back a lot too. So I could tell that he was not necessarily looking at me and what I needed, but looking at what the Syllabus was telling him to teach and the way how I connected the music was so far beyond whatever Syllabus was teaching you. And I knew this from the get go, because when I would spend time alone, I felt like I was improving. 

There’s a point when I was improving more spending time alone and practicing or working with other younger musicians, like high school students who are giving me lessons. And really that was so empowering for me to also work with another young person who was also a student. Though I was in elementary, middle school, working with someone who’s also in high school was super inspiring because they have not only the good talent technique, but they also have the drive to keep going in their life as well. And so later on, after I left this cello teacher, I then met an amazing teacher named David Cole, whose father, Orlando Cole, was the cello master at the Curtis Institute of Music. It was in the original string quartet there working with famed composer Samuel Barber. And so he was passing along a lot of things that his father was teaching him and was so much more about being a human being than cello and not just looking at your identity as a cellist. 

And so removing everything that I’ve ever known kind of would still mean still keeping the technical aspects of what I learned from my former teacher before that was super helpful, actually. And honestly, I thank him so much to this day. And sometimes we randomly text or FaceTime or something. I have a lesson randomly. But learning about the fact that I’m a human and that you must bring your human aspects into your art and collaborate the two. This made a huge difference for me. And I felt like I wasn’t being as hard on myself for sure. And knowing that just like there are mistakes in music, there are mistakes in life. 

True. The more I was able to make these correlations, actually, I was improving more and more and being able to not only improve practicing alone, but also getting so much more out of these lessons in person with him. Compared to what I was getting before, I was feeling very stuck and a little bit afraid about where I would be going. These collisions of getting into ballet were amazing because that following years when I attended boarding school, coincidentally, the boarding school is actually right next door to the University that I was studying at. Because this individual, David, predominantly teaches for College level students, and I was 15 years old and he had taken me on as a student. There was one other student who was working with him who was also in class with and we were friends, and he was such an inspiring cellist for sure. And so when I got the opportunity to work with him, he said, David, you can’t just ask to work with him. 

He has to ask if you want to work with him. And so we went for a trial class, and he was like, yes, you need to come back. Let’s work together. I was super happy. And that next year when I had to start from scratch, learning that my ballet training before that had been kind of botched, I was able to kind of spend time practicing again. But then seeing how would this correlate to that? And how was preparing for piece similar to preparing for a ballet barre, learning that it starts with your scales, first of all, starts with tuning your instrument. 

That’s in correlation with warming up and in such with their scales that’s in correlation with dancing bar, warming up more with using your body to warm up with combinations and set steps. And then you get into solo repertoire, and that goes into learning about a solo variation. And then you do full Orchestra when you’re with a flourish with the percussion, the brass and the Woodlands and the strings. And that’s mostly like dancing in a corp de ballet. So there’s actually no difference in how you approach these things, only by just acknowledging the fact that they’re so similar, you already start making all these connections. So learning about teamwork muscle memory is such a big one. Yes. The repetition. This is such an important thing and it’s something that will never really leave your body when you get it in your body. 

So there are pieces of music that I would play for my young age and then I would not play them for seven years and then think about a song again and I would still be able to play it. Like I would just think about it for two minutes and oh yeah, I actually don’t remember this or just by starting the first few notes. Somehow you just remember the rest of the piece. Stay with ballet. You have the tendu, and you do the tendu every day of your life. And so by then in the future, when you start getting more complicated combinations, you already know how to do a tendu. It’s just a matter of remembering the combination of the tendu. And so same with choreography. You have choreographers that are coming in for one or two days to set up piece versus three or four months, like in a school. 

And so you have to repeat, repeat and ask as many questions as possible. Study the video and before you know it the steps themselves, you remember them. And then all you have to do is focus on the music and let the music inform how you do this step. That’s given and with choreography. When I’m making a ballet, I listen to the music before I even think of the step. And I also never play the steps at all. I go into the studio, dancer asks, what am I supposed to do? 

And I say, I have no idea, let’s listen to the music together. I had some ideas it might have like a skeleton, but it’s their job to fill in the connective tissue, the muscles, the membranes, the skin tissue, all of it. And so it’s also letting the person have the responsibility of bringing what they are and everything in their being to the forefront. So I can also make the necessary adjustments in the choreography that fits something. So they actually like what they’re doing. And so a lot of us who is communication, opening your ears and eyes and forming an open dialogue. Interesting connections. Yeah. Which role would you like to dance? Interestingly enough, I never actually thought of a role that I want to dance. In particular, I was always really engulfed by just the dance itself. 

And there are so many ballets that have different storylines and different intentions. I do know that there are ballets by choreographers, that there are certainly several ballets by a choreographer that I would want to dance. For me, I would love to dance as much of a by William Forsyth choreographer as much as possible. He was American born, but then moved to Europe. He developed all these amazing technologies and the body of improvisation and the science behind it and also using our body to get from point A to point B without even leaving the room. And so much psychological point A, point B, point B. And so I thought that was very interesting. And then when I was in Canada, we did a ballet by his called The Second Detail, and I barely got any rehearsals at all. 

I was cast third, and they never used really the third cast. Or if they did use the third cast, they would ask me to sit it out for rehearsal. And then Wayne Forrest comes into the room, the choreographer who I had been admiring for years. And the first thing he does is call me out, ask me to demonstrate. And so he’s like, wow, you have it. And then we were in the gym together. One day I decided to one of these few days, do cardio in the gym. And so, Interestingly enough, he was seventy years old lIfting all these weights, doing all these push up. And I was like, Are you preparing for the apocalypse? And he was like, Maybe. After that, we got into a conversation about choreography and things like this. And I ended up showing him some of my choreography. 

He loved my work. And it was interesting because a lot of people in the room were looking the other way or ignoring the fact that I was creating things from my heart. And he totally acknowledged it. Not only acknowledged, it sat me down. We sat together at lunch, and he was correcting me on what I should focus on in my choreography. So it went from just one conversation to him being there for the weekend, giving me so many amazing tips and mentoring me to a certain extent, actually, about how I go about choreographing and listening to the music and my relationship with that. I found that we both have the same composer in common that we love to acquire off to, which is Sergei Prokofiev.

His music is super odd and almost hilarious, borderline hilarious, but also it can get very serious, but nonetheless very technical. And so from that, that gave me a huge inspiration. He told me, you need to go to Germany. You need to go to Germany. Because he was the first person to really revitalize the Frankfurt Ballet in the 90s. And he brought all of his contemporary aspects to this very what was formerly known as an extremely classical company. 

And so when he first started directing his company, people were booing, shouting, screaming, because it was very uncomfortable for them to see something that was so up the future. It was very hard to process. But also most great things kind of start with a riot, just like riot of Spring, Nijinskj, Diaghilev Stravinsky, all these people who have been pioneers in what it is to be in, obviously the ballet world, but having a different influence contemporary wise on it. And so the first premiere Rite of spring in France,  1920 maybe, there was a riot. 

People fighting because it’s music. Igor Strawinski making eight tone music, mixed meter tempo, which people are not used to. They’re used to the good old fashioned four four or the Waltz six eight. So when you have a seven eight, mix with a ten and then mix with a three and a five just throws people off. But then now people are making music, people are making ballets, take total silence or people making ballets to mix meter stuff that changes every 2 seconds. And so something that once was so of the future came to be now so popular. 

So I think it’s really about trusting actually. And when you see things that are different or maybe even off to what society thinks most of the time, it’s probably something that society will need later on in life. There’s a lot of evolution inside there, like the processing, getting out of the historical versions exactly. Unlearning and relearning and incorporating too. Changing the topic here a little bit. 

What do you think is the most underrated job in the entire entertainment industry? 

Very good question. Well, I must say it’s people that work backstage for sure. I think that when you’re in the arts world and you’re a dance goer or theater goer, people really are only thinking about the people that are on the stage in this given set and time for this hour and a half. I mean, we all know that dancers to put on a good performance are rehearsing a lot, a lot. And this is common knowledge. But no one is also thinking about the people that are working the lights and how they have to plan this for people who have to clean up afterwards. So yes, a ballet may end at 10:30 P.m., but there are literally when you walk out the door, not everyone in the building is walking out the door.

 People’s jobs will even start when people walk out the door and it will go until two, three in the morning, taking down disassembling sets and cleaning up and moving the fake snow from Nutcracker and putting it back into its place. It’s literally like you have to dismantle something that was so beautiful and put it back to its original state for the very next day. And they repeat it over and over again, 20 to 30 times depending on what program you’re doing. So for me, it was really the people that are always behind the scenes, that are super underrated backstage, the stage hands, but also the director for backstage ones who are calling the shots, the stage manager, they actually go into a great deal of stress looking. 

When I was in National Ballet of Canada, I became very friendly with the people who I worked backstage because my dad told me, my mom also told me separately, the people who need to be friends are the ones who are in the background, supposedly the most, because they’re the ones who have not only the most information, they see everything. So you can probably get the best advice from them. This is super true. I got some of the best advice on how to deal with company life from people who are not directly in the dance company itself, but we’re working for the organization, but not necessarily in the room every day. 

This woman I met named Lil, who worked in National Ballet of Canada, she’s calling all the shots backstage from a microphone, not only looking at what the dancers are doing, visual cues on what they’re dancing. She’s also calling the lights, also calling the music, talking to the conductor when to go, all of this and also having the reading the score of looking at what the heck is happening. 

I’m literally just like, not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes they just have a microphone. So I got so much appreciation from this. And having dancing the first company in Cleveland and having to do all these other things. This is super overwhelming. And this is only every once in a while, every program we would go on rotation because they have to do this every single day. This is so stressful. But also she loved it, every minute of it. So to me, it may be stressful to her. It’s probably very therapeutic and meditative. 

So we all have different ways of looking at things, but this was definitely a thing. Also the physiotherapists, the ones who are working on our bodies. In the meantime, half the performances I would not have done if there was not someone that was working on my body or giving a massage or releasing something or putting a needle in my back. Honestly, these individuals really go underrated in regards to just looking at how dancers treat them, going in and making commands. This, I want this. I want that walking out, not even saying thank you or how is your day? Or do you need anything? Or should I show up five minutes early? What is your schedule? Providing a communication that allows them to know that they’re just more than just their jobs and human beings or families and loving their life. 

And so this is something that must be acknowledged. And I always was able to form such a wonderful dialogue with these individuals who are helping me with my body. These people were literally unlocking so many parts of my body that I didn’t know should have been unlocked in the first place. And that also had a big change on my performance and how I took class too. When you’re looking and acknowledging how much work they put into your body, it makes you also want to put better work into your body too. 

How much should a dancer earn? What is the right compensation? 

 

Well, to me, I feel that a dancer should be earning at least 750 a week. In New York City, rent is super high. And in other places, rent is also super high. But when you also take into consideration that you’re not just having a physical toll, you’re having a very strong mental toll on your body, you need to be able to also afford mental health help. Bodily help outside of just the physiotherapist. Can you see chiropractor? Not every insurance company is able to help you. 

Not everybody is able to afford proper insurance. Companies are not always able to provide insurance, period. And there are some fabulous companies that aren’t able to provide insurance. There are also some really amazing companies that provide great insurance, but also they’ll learn how to take advantage of it and providing a space for you to understand and give you information on what it is to live a well life full of health outside of the dance studio. So for me, I really think it should be within the $700 a week realm, because not only do dancers need to feel comfortable, there’s so much preparation that they need to take into consideration that we all need. And with this being a starting salary, I think it’s actually quite fair. In places like New York, you should really be paying your dancer between $$1,000 to $1,500 a week because your rent is literally up to $1500 a month for living in a room. And so when you take that into consideration and then all your bills and then paying taxes, et cetera, study time, there are people they’re going to study for eight to twelve years. 

This is as much as doctors and lawyers. 

Exactly. And some of these people are in school to do other things too. Going to College while also maintaining a background in a career in dance is super difficult. And also it could get very pricey just giving them the money and the safety net for them to be able to explore their other options. With everyone knowing that a dance career is not extremely long. This is I think it’s a very thoughtful thing and logical thing, actually. A lot of companies are associated with a Union where the Union represents them, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a not so good way. But I think the conversation about salaries is really nice. 

But a lot of companies are not unionized. So you’re having to be at the receiving end of someone who may not actually understand the struggles of what individuals have to deal with because they’re going off of what they only knew as dancers who were also maybe formally not in a company. Also, that was unionized. I’ve done auditions for companies where they’d offered me a job and they’re saying that we can offer you $200 a week for a full company member. Mary, $600 a month. So it’s like $200 to play with for a whole 30 days. This is ridiculous. And things like this happen all the time. And dancers have to accept them because there are no jobs available a lot of the time. And so it’s really about opening up the conversation of where is all the money going, you know what I mean? 

So checks and balances. If the person at the front of the room is calling the shots and pretty much only calling the shots and also low key abusing people, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they should be making ten times as much money as the person who is actually putting on the shows and bringing in the money. So I think it’s really about valuing the dancer and not only just looking at what they’re doing in this hour and a half of looking at the years and years of sacrifice, not only they but their parents probably or Guardians have put into them getting into this position. Not everyone has financials to board.

 Not everybody has access to mommy and Daddy’s credit card or the four digit Pin. And so this also gives the confidence to take the Bull by the horns and really live their own life. Because if you give them the time to play and enjoy themselves and also take care of their health, they’re most certainly going to want to come to work. Bright eye and bushy tailed, more than likely. But if they’re broke and not making any money and they’re overworked and underpaid, odds are you’re not going to necessarily have a positive working environment. Sure. I also believe that in the end, the product that we are putting on stage there where, I don’t know, 1000, 2000 with a tour, even several thousand people, they’re going there to relieve their stress. Exactly. So we are quite relevant there. 

I think it’s really ironic that people are going to relieve their stress watching dancers who Loki are super stressed out. You know what I mean? You can be putting on the best performance of your night of your life and not have any food in the refrigerator simply because that’s just the way the world works sometimes with regards to salary and payment. Also, dancers need to absolutely know where the money is going to have a right to know what donations are being made and where the donations are going to. It’s crazy when you look at the program and you see someone donated 10,000, some donated 30,000, someone donated 30,000 or so, and so donated all this money for diversity and hiring dancers. But the people who are making the place diverse are barely getting anything. So it’s like, where is the money actually going to? And a lot of people who are donating are not being informed of where their money is going either. So they’re thinking, oh, I want to make it for this, for this. And these donors have wonderful these patients have wonderful intentions and then connecting with the dancer, assuming that they’re getting the support directly. 

Little do you know, the money is just going to the people at the very top. This is the truth. Disturbing, disturbing. It’s super disturbing. It needs to be spoken about. This dialogue needs to be super open between patrons, between the people at the very top and also the dancers. And everyone should have an equal space to speak about what their intentions are true. 

Now you have the chance to work in both New York and Toronto. How do they differ pay wise? 

Oh, well, one, the funding is different depending on what company you’re in. I was not in a Union company. Dance Theatre of Harlem was not a Union company. So a lot of our payment was based of ticket sales subsidy for the government. New York now. Yeah, grants, donations really, like ticket sales, like for real. 

And we’re a touring company, so we’re constantly going to a new state or city every few weeks. And so everything that we’re putting on this depends on our payment, really, and how much money. Sometimes there are times when we’re not getting a lot of performances and our salary may not be high one year, but then we’ll find out the following season. We have a really wonderful set up. 

Payment has been coming in. We’re able to give you guys a little raise, which is fantastic. But also randomly, there will be a donor who donates thousands and thousands of dollars. Recently, Dance Theatre of Harlem just got a grant for over a million dollars or a million dollars, but they are able to it makes me happy because that means that these dancers, the ones where I was sharing hotel rooms with on tour and getting to dance with, are being paid sufficiently and consistently and will be able to survive all the hardships that the world is kind of giving them because the world is a very intense place and it’s gotten really intense in the past year and a half. 

So that gives me a lot of hope. And this is something that is super important, just the dependency on people from around you. In Canada, you have people who donate the same amount of money every single year. You have all types of cultural organizations that have grants you have that are given every single year annually. And so naturally, there is a generational wealth that this company carries where money is not necessarily a problem. Yes, there can be dips and expenses, but more than likely, when you’re able to pay dancers, well, they also want to perform better too, because they can support themselves in a better way. 

And also when you’re putting on better performances, you’re going to get larger audiences and then they’re going to want to donate more. So it’s really having to do with the wellness of the dancer where you’re able to provide for them. And from there this great to domino effect, either a positive domino effect or a negative domino effect. Did you ever experience missing passion? Yeah, of course. 

My goodness. When you’re doing something every day of your life, you cannot expect everything to constantly go up. There’s lots of moments of Plateau stage. And just because even though, even if you are doing your said passion does not mean that you feel passionately about it. So there are lots of moments. Actually, in my two years of National Ballet of Canada, 75% of the time, I was super depressed because they were not giving me opportunities, barely any opportunities at that. And I was basically getting the crumbs. And so even though I was with my body every day and inspiring myself to come to work every day does not mean that there was a whole a lot of passion behind what I was doing. 

So I was basically a bench warmer for two years. And the only time I get an opportunity to dance as if the choreographer would come from out of the country to put me in a ballet, other than that, if it was casting from the inside, I almost always expected to never even be in something because, one, they didn’t necessarily know me as an individual and they didn’t necessarily try to get to know me as an individual. And two, I definitely know for a fact that my color, my skin was a lot of things that people were seeing. 

And for sure, when I’m looking at myself dancing in relationship to everyone else around me, I definitely have what it takes, for sure. And a lot of it definitely comes from the life that we were conditioned to live. And so I wasn’t necessarily taking it so personally, but I most certainly was looking at it in a way that was not necessarily also most positive either, because you’re constantly dealing with are they seeing me? Am I a bad dancer? So I’m thinking, oh, my God, I must not be that good. And then choreographer comes from out of town and says, you are amazing what is going on. So for me, it was always a constant battle of how I was viewing myself. 

And yeah, that pretty much sums that up. There are lots of times when I would look myself in the mirror and love what I see. Lots of times at the time I would look at myself in the mirror and not love what I see. But I never took any of it personally because this is naturally just how human beings are. And so even this past year, from having such a gravely traumatic experience living in Canada and also at the same time making the very best of it, there were so many months of healing that I had to do this year. 

I was not spending time, a lot of time dancing classical ballet. I didn’t realize that I was actually getting a lot of joy from dancing everything else other than classical ballet. And so taking this year of almost like a hiatus where, yes, I would do barre every now and then, it was very difficult to put on classical music associated with the ballet that I’ve danced because it would bring back a lot of very negative memories. And so I had to take a step back. And by taking a step back and focusing on other things, this allows me to also regain deeper connection and passion for what I’m doing. And also knowing that it’s natural to not always be totally in love with what you’re doing. It’s literally part of being a human being true. 

When you’re with a partner or something, you’re not naturally expected to be fully in love with that person from the day you first met them. There’s always going to be ups and downs in the road. And so it was acceptance of knowing that it’s not going to be perfect, but also looking at the bigger picture, that it will always get better. And I knew that this time will come where my passions will come back into my heart and soul, and I’d be able to put them into the physical realm. 

And so for me, I took a good, solid chunk of time away from music, from playing cello, for many different reasons. One, because I was overworked and I was overworking myself and also from ballet, I was overworked overworking myself, working seven times as hard, getting half as much, which is typical thing for someone who’s of color in the arts world and runs with, not just dance, with music, acting, modeling, all types of things. And so it was just knowing that there’s a much bigger picture and a greater service that is to be brought to the community. And it may not happen overnight, and it’s not going to be 100% positive all the time. 

A couple of weeks ago, my dad told me, you need to carry your burdens with the pleasure. And yes, there are definitely a lot of burdens in this life. But think about it that way of knowing that you have to carry it with Grace is a super important thing, because the more you carry with Grace, you become okay with this pain that is inevitable. So when you become okay with the pain that is inevitable, a lot of other things tend to not be able to stop you. So I knew that this time would come. And I’ve been diving a lot into choreography. 

I’ve been diving a lot into teaching ballet and exercising this part of my life. And so from teaching a lot and choreographing and being able to also learn about DJing, it’s also brought my passion back for ballet. It brought my passion back for music and things like this. I have always been passionate about ballet, but I have not been able to express my passion physically. So I can feel it inside of my heart does not necessarily mean my body will be able to follow, because my mind is still trying to figure out a lot of things that I have to deal with as a professional and as a student.

 And naturally this is what happens. And I think to force it and to continue to keep pushing when your heart is telling you one thing and your mind telling you another thing, that’s actually more unhealthy to your body and to your life than anything else, to take a step back allows you to form different relationship with what you’re doing, but also looking at it from a different perspective. I’m looking at ballet from a very different perspective than I did last June when I left the company. 

And so actually it was so much more of an open minded and open hearted perspective, too, because I was thinking that this is the only way things can be, and this is the only way things will ever be, which is just not the case. So when I left and came to Europe, I was received so differently by people. And the fact that people are coming out of their way to reach out to me to express the love for what I provide artistically and also how my dancing makes people feel allowed me to appreciate myself so much more. 

And I then learned that the environment has such an effect on your wellness and what you’re doing. So this has been a really intense of a battle of but also it’s something that I really didn’t call it a battle. I really call it just a challenge because these are challenging times. It wasn’t necessarily a battle. The only battles I’ve had were really kind of with myself. And these are challenging times that these times have also been very telling and what I need and what I don’t need. And I wasn’t supposed to be doing that for a little period of time in this time of my life because I needed to reconnect and rekindle my relationship with ballet. 

And sometimes that takes you not actually physically doing the ballet, but thinking about your relationship with ballet. True. What advice would you give the next generation? Okay, the advice I would give the next generation is you have to love everything about what you’re doing by loving it doesn’t mean you need to necessarily like it, but you have to love yourself in it. So if someone’s mistreating you, you cannot put your trust in how someone’s mistreating you. You have to constantly go back to yourself, always going back to yourself. Get a Journal. Anyone who is doing something new, get a Journal. 

I’ve been journaling so much since I was about 20 years old. I have journals up on journals up on journals. Since that age, I think I may have over eight to nine journals filled up with everyday thoughts. Sometimes I’ll take maybe ten to 15 days off and then come back to it. But most of the time I’m consistently writing my thoughts, how I’m feeling, everything. This is an amazing form of therapy also. But also the best part is when you finishing a Journal, going back and looking at it from the very first page and seeing about how you grew and how you stayed the same in some areas and how you got out of those Plateau stages. 

That is the most inspiring thing is to be able to look at your very own writing and your very own words and your thought process and see how it changed and shifted, and that informs how you will continuously think in the future. It doesn’t mean you’re going to have the same mindset, but it can inform a completely different mindset by actually just looking at how your brain was processing things in your life. So definitely get a Journal and talk to the people that love you and know that you’re not only going to order you may be one, it may be a million. 

Most of the time it might be three. But know that you’re not supposed to have only positive conversations with people who are supporting you. Have the conversations that are difficult for you, that’s difficult for you to deal with. There are situations in your life that you genuinely just have no answer to, but sometimes just to be heard can give you all types of answers that you need. And by just getting out in the open, you can receive so much unexpected advice from people you are at your current age. 

What would you ask your nine year old self?

Probably ask my nine years of Are you having fun yet? Probably this, probably this because my home life is very difficult at this time. But also this is also when I was really understanding my love for cello. And so it’s like two years after playing and I was like so deep in the music books for sure. And I remember homelife was difficult, but also music life has given me a whole different part of my life that made it so beautiful and something that was so special that even the most privileged people on the planet never felt this type of love easily. 

I can see this even in the room with musicians. I definitely would ask myself, Are you having fun yet? Which would kind of initiate the thought of me being me. Looking at the fact that my home life is not my life, that’s just part of my life. Looking at the overall big picture of it. Beautiful life. 

Beautiful. What would you ask your 99 year old self? 

Having fun yet? I’m not myself the exact same thing. Are you having fun yet? We are going to have issues in our lives and we are going to constantly have to remind ourselves that you must have fun with whatever you’re doing. And I definitely think that’d be the question I would ask myself, Are you having fun yet? Beautiful. Well, tell us a little bit more what is going on in your life? Are there any upcoming shows? Are you still playing the cello, model gigs? Djing?

Well, I’m in the process right now of starting my own dance program here in Berlin. I was able to get a really wonderful studio in Berlin / Weissensee for the next couple of months, and then hopefully moving to a more centrally located studio space at the end of November. But I really wanted to provide a space for people in the community, particularly in the techno community, for people to give their time and energy to something that will enlighten them and also empower their bodies, because people spend a lot of time dancing in the city. 

And so I think it’s wonderful to be able to provide something where people can dance different styles, but also at an affordable price, and also allow them to see the intersectionality between techno music and classical ballet. I choreograph a lot of ballets to techno music, actually. And so it’s interesting because technically they’re both actually very much still the same, but a lot of people have never even seen this happen. And so that’s one thing I wanted to bring to Berlin is these ideas that I’ve had about this, and I’ve been meditating a lot on that, and I really feel that it needs to happen. And so I also have been in contact with a couple of different teachers who specialize in hip hop, Vogue, yoga, Tai Chi based movement. 

And so I also want to give my friends opportunity to teach and share their knowledge too, because I love individuals who are able to share something that I don’t really necessarily know a whole lot about. Yes, I can teach a contemporary class, but I also know that there’s other contemporary dancers who can teach a better class. So this has been a really big, important thing for me. Of course, there have been a lot of stops and hesitations in regards to me feeling worthy of doing this. Also finances and adjusting here and getting a visa. 

And so even though I had a plan of starting this a little bit of time ago, a couple of months ago, I also knew that there was a lot of adjusting I had to truly do before I did this. I had to make sure that I’m good and grounded before I can move forward. And I feel that I’m very much so finding my grounding in my footing here now. And so I am super excited to be able to move forward with this. I have been giving private lessons for quite some time, and that’s been really amazing to just meet individuals around the city who have seen my work, whether the techno scene or not, just like every day office workers, people who are in the arts, people who are not the arts, older people, younger people everywhere in between type of people. 

And so that has been a really empowering thing. And I do know that in the future, I plan on definitely renting space in studio theaters and doing performances and getting together other professional dancers and teaching choreography, particularly to techno music. So then I can also start putting my ballets on display here in the city. Okay, that’s an amazing plan. We will make sure that all your channels and websites they will be linked in our underneath this video here. 

So we have one signature closing question. Actually, that is if you had the chance to put anything you want on a giant Billboard, what would that be? 

Interesting I would probably put up a picture I would probably do this probably put a picture of probably some musical instruments, some dance shoes, maybe a painting palette around the sides and then in the Center I’d probably put a picture of a skeleton and next to another picture of a skeleton and then a picture of another skeleton and another skeleton and underneath it probably happens with a question of do you see a difference of what’s the skeleton and then in parentheses underneath the skeleton it will say black person, white person, Asian person, Latino person. So people would actually get the idea that you could be incorporated the arts and has nothing to do with what you look like. This will not inform how well you perform something but just to see that underneath the skin we are all just exactly the  same.

Beautiful ending. Nicholas Isaiah King rose. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.