Perseverance has always just been something that was in me. And it was a tool that came in very handy as a ballerina.

Ballet was so structured. I'd been craving something that could guide me.

I think that the ideal physique and look of a ballerina is always changing with different eras. And it's continuing to change.

Dance kind of was always just a part of my natural state as a child. It's something that, whenever music was playing, I was dancing.

It's a European art form, and you're used to seeing a certain type of person as a ballerina. And I don't look like a lot of the girls around me.

When it came to my childhood - growing up in a single-parent home, often struggling financially - my mother definitely instilled in me and my siblings this strength, this will, to just continue to survive and succeed.