If Coachella had a ballet company, BalletRed would be it, which brings me to this: What’s the state of contemporary ballet today, and what qualities do you look for in young dancers that might not have been emphasized, say, a decade ago?

For me, it’s having that wide skill set. I didn’t grow up in the competition world, but dancers that did, most of them are in ABT. They’re comp kids who then focus on classical with their skill set—their ability to do every type of contemporary, hip-hop, ballroom. And when they’re so versed in different styles, their musicality allows me to play with all different styles.

I’m very eclectic naturally. I’ve always been a closet hip-hop dancer my whole career. And I’m very musical, so I prefer dancers that have all the training in their body, but they have had to commit to classical at a high level, because you can’t do contemporary if you haven’t trained at the highest level of classical.

For my company, BalletRed, dancers that have training in all different styles, really understand the different musicality and modalities of floor work and different attacks that help with the live band and the music. All of them have a high level of classical training. I also get commissions on classical ballerinas to do a contemporary piece for my company.

The thing about me is that I’m a chameleon. I’m good at bringing the best out of whoever I’m working with. I have my style, but when I get a commission, I don’t force my thing on them. I pull out what is the best in them; I know how to energize that. 

What excites you most about the next generation of dancers and choreographers?

The boundaries that used to exist are not there anymore. The sharing of different styles is so commonplace. For me, the word contemporary means new, and the new keeps evolving. I don’t look at contemporary in a strict way. I’m always reinventing myself and finding the new in myself. Being a teacher, I also have my finger on the pulse of the next generation. 

I feel very relevant. I don’t feel I’m the old guard, because I’m building these dancers. I’m around this all the time. That’s what excites me. I’m always breaking boundaries. I’ve been doing my thing forever. I remember Colleen [Neary] and Thordal [Christensen, Los Angeles Ballet’s co-founders] once said, “She’s too rock and roll.”  

But I’ve always thought outside the box. Classical ballet is traditional—and I love tradition, but for me, it’s honoring tradition and taking it into the future. It’s not distancing it; it’s an evolution of something very dear, and I think that's what's going to keep bringing the younger generation to it. 

These TV shows always reach out to me, because my work is accessible to a wider audience, because the world at large only thinks of ballet as “Swan Lake” and “Nutcracker.”

My work is not commercial in the sense where it’s cheap or sold-out; my stuff is far from that. And I can see where people try to make ballet sexy or burlesque, and it's kind of cheesy. I don’t do that. I don't think I've been trying to do anything other than just being true to myself in my own way. It’s what I prefer, even the way I teach as an artist and a dancer.

In other words, you’re helping define the next generations of dancers through your work as teacher, choreographer and artistic director. 

Nobody taught the way I taught with different music, and now everyone does. I wanted to be an acupuncturist—I’ve always been into spirituality and wellness—because the ballet world was rough for me to grow as a woman and a human. My last year in Zürich, I had an eating disorder, but to look like an anorexic 12-year-old boy wasn’t going to work anymore. Bringing that holistic world and the contemporary world and the yoga world that I was enamored with, that sort of created my own style of class.

And because I’m also a choreographer, I wanted to choreograph in my ballet classes, and that became popular. It was also for people who love ballet but have been rejected. I was at the Edge [Performing Arts Centre], and my classes were filled with hip-hop dancers, commercial dancers, ballet dancers. That’s how I got into circus stuff, because there was a ton of ex-Cirque du Soleil dancers who asked me to collaborate with them. 

It's through training that keeps me connected. It’s very grounding, because when you see something on stage, it didn’t just get there. It’s a process. You got to show up every day. You got to train. You gotta do the work. The performance is like a quick celebration: that massive mountain, then there's that little peak, and everybody comes and applauds.

Audiences have no idea that it’s about a daily grind of showing up. And that's why I always say to my dancers, “Performance is that celebration. Let's just celebrate. Don't even get in your head about it. Just go out there and celebrate our hard work and share it with people. Literally, let's just share and celebrate!”