I was always interested in dance as a creative art and traditionally dance is taught as an interpretive art.

Composition and choreography were always very important to me and I choreographed for my earliest training.

I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and am a product of a family that were jazz aficionados and also very interested in progressive politics. And so I had a lot of artists and musicians in my home. Lots of Latin music, folk, and jazz and blues, bluegrass-type of stuff. Painters and stuff like that.