“I was first exposed to ballet at the age of seven when a...

“I was first exposed to ballet at the age of seven when a traveling company came to my church in North Carolina. By the time I was eleven I was practicing six days a week. It became my all-consuming monastic devotion. I eventually made it to the New York City Ballet. I’ve always seen ballet as my way of serving God. I think it’s what God has called me to do. You can call it frivolous, or superficial. But you can stretch that argument to infinity. Why do we have painting? Why do we have architecture? I think it’s all a form of worship. In a secular age the theater becomes the cathedral. There can be such a lack of empathy and collaboration in this world. But in the theater we see beauty and order and harmony modeled for us– two hours at a time. And it took a lot of sacrifice to make that possible.“