- the costume women publicly speaking about my ass
"What is that? Is that your stomach? Suck it in. Do something about it. It's not OK." - being told to lose weight (instantaneously) while standing next to a severely anorexic dancer
"Are you on birth control?" - on why my body was the way that it was
"You want to choreograph? Oh. Really?" - on repeating myself for the umpteenth time
"Humphrey Blowhole has a great idea that I think we should adopt!" - on having an idea that I related to a male collaborator that was then further disseminated as that male collaborator's idea
"Your generation is so difficult."- on wanting more than the narrow identities that dance companies afford their dancers/not being satisfied with the work put in to disassembling existing power structures
"I don't know how else to say this to you, since you just don't get any of the words that I'm saying to you," -being called dumb by a female rehearsal director when I did, in fact, understand the words that she was saying to me
"There were a lot of comments about why we let bodies like that dance on stage in costumes like that. Not necessarily about you, but a lot of comments." -on why I had to fight so hard to be in a piece that the choreographer had clearly asked for me to dance. The costume was a leotard.
"As a girl in ballet, you just can't really do that." -on trying to be a creative female dancer who sometimes did not wear lipstick to ballet class
"If you want to do that, than go somewhere else" -on, sadly enough, what I did, because institutions are pretty damn resistant to the change.