 Dance, arts, ballet, it's for everybody. I wholeheartedly believe that, and I think there's a reason, you know, that you can find arts and dance in every single culture, you know, no matter how far you go back in history. He brings our mission to life in a different way. It always lived, but he is that mission. I mean, he came in middle school to a performance here at the Cougar. The next thing we knew was taking six days to wake up, he's part of our lives. You know, shattered all my misconceptions and preconceived notions about it. The further I delved into the world of ballet, the more I realized I wasn't very good at it. That gnawed at my pride immediately, and so I delved deeper and worked harder and put more time and more effort into it. I always describe it like wisteria. I didn't even know, but it was growing around me, wrapping me up, and I was done for. I fell in love with it. I watched him evolve as a person, not only a dancer, but as a person. I did a lot of international ballet competitions, which are basically like Olympics for ballet. Meddled, and many of them, many of them being the first African American to medal sometimes the first American period. Those competitions created a lot of connections or allowed me to get more notoriety in my career and led to me being able to travel all over the world, being invited to different theaters and companies. And I feel like he made the timing right. I know it was early to come back and become artistic director, but he did it for Redenco and he did it for us. He did it for the, he loves the city. I was around and I would come into the studio and give myself class every once in a while. I got to see the dancers day-to-day a little bit and it wasn't great. You know, there was a lot of uncertainty, you know, not having a director. Ultimately, that's what led me to accept interim director. My initial thought was, you know, all right, I'll get these dancers through the season because, you know, they didn't sign up for this. I ended up getting attached to working with the dancers and really invested. It is always about what is best for the dancer. It's always about more this, more this, that helps them, more performance, more this. It's always about someone else. It is never about him. Enhances the art scene here and he looks at things with a new eye. Before the ballet starts, he comes out on the stage, he greets the audience, he explains to them what the ballet is about, he encourages them to participate. I've never seen this before. To me, Brooklyn Mack stands for what's now, what's new and what's next. It's our gift and we know this and it's so wonderful to know what you have when you have it. I also recognize that, you know, the city, this community, this state deserves a high quality ballet company that can put on, you know, great works that rival national companies. The audience just needs to be introduced to it and broadened and welcomed and know that they're welcome.