[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> our job at elite, who is to bridge the students to becoming professional artists.

so we take the most talented artists from the school and we nurture them.

we give them professional, have that.

so they can either join the main company or join another professional company after they're finished.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] i work in conjunction also with robert battle because we are connected as artistic director of ailey, too.

and he's the artistic director of ailey one that we we talk and exchange ideas and and think about also, too.

>> the cohesion of the whole organization.

>> what's really exciting about us being here?

we're not only at the us, but we're also branching out and extending our outreach to high schools around the area.

the troy area.

we're doing serious workshops and masterclasses.

and what's so exciting about what we've prepared for dsa is that the dancers from the company actually become the leaders for the week.

so they're going and they're teaching classes.

>> it's going to be traditional warm-up and some modern and contemporary warming up.

just introduce a little bit of the essence of what we do in our in our typical day.

we're also going to be doing some across the floor.

introducing some of my repertory in conjunction with that were also on stage doing actually did the work, which is live performances and from then on being able to bring students to those performances and interact with them.

after that, [MUSIC] i company has, as a whole has a wider and brelo, wider range units, the vastness of flu reaches but to really has the ability to do the the micro, the microscope ing the micro chisel of shaping young lives being in schools personally.

>> ever thought to be able to say that i ever get to work without the daily that it's something that it really does.

i need it.

this is a cause completely bigger than me.

>> one of the things that's important to me and i talked about coming into the job is legacy shaping the future.

>> to witness growth and witness these young artists feeling more confident within themselves to feel empowered to feel new wants to feel grace full to feel full fully expressive is just it's it's the most wonderful experience for me.

we don't always get to express ourselves fully what in the world that we feel when you experience racism or we experience an equity.

so to have a space that we can pour all of that truth into the work and have other people see it and experience it.

it's it's changes lives.

we have people all the time that have seen our performances and then and it's pivoted them into another direction and to a courageous direction when he twenty-two.

[MUSIC] >> i had water to you being here.

i watched wade in the water actually junior high school as part about black history month dance history.

>> lesson that segment that month and i saw these beautiful black movers who looks like me, but me exemplified magnified.

so i thought that i was i was always a petite little one in class.

cut them to see someone who was of my my size.

it was a small black woman moving as the laker girl, but to see her moving her and her power inspired me to find that kind of grace and elegance and maximize my voice sport.

[MUSIC] >> it was like the breakdown of like how the choir goes twice, though, ways, way highly like they have like a little wide praise a moment when i saw the dancers do that i was like and that that moment of energy, where was like, but you have these dramatic pauses and then by the breakdown and that moment, i hope in my eyes, honestly, as a dancer, i've never seen people have so much fun.

stays like that.

like having moments of intimacy with other dancers.

that's the biggest part of it all.

[MUSIC] >> we call this artist who reached the human spirit and the americas and scary.

i think that we have the ability to to steal, to empower to uplift.

>> so i'm able to connect with young people that generation like for we're all one community, unable to see a wide range of ages and that the meat of an elite who's doing.

[MUSIC] >> this stage is the social platform for change.

there is power in the collective consciousness that is exchange between an audience and and and dancers that are watching.

[MUSIC] ivan would be so proud.

>> to think about what is started and the power of art.

>> and the sea that has now expanded into this, this this moment of full recognition and inclusion probably beyond what he drought.

>> to show zoo.