What do you do for a living, on the side and for fun?
I have done many a thing in New York to pay the rent, but my profession is that of a dancer. I studied ballet, tap, modern and all that jazz! My true passion is musical theatre, and hopefully one day I will find myself on the “Great White Way”, but right now I am mostly performing at private events and industrials. I work for a handful of productions companies that have hired me to be anything from glamorous showgirl, to the Empire State building, or a human chandelier, and very often a Lady Gaga impersonator. I have jumped out of cakes at birthday parties, handed out cigars for J-Lo, been paid to drink champagne for Veuve Clicquot, and generally shaken a tail feather from Barbados to Berlin. On the side I work for a former drag queen, who owns one of the fabulous companies that I work for, organising his costume shop that we lovingly call “The Magic Basement.” It’s packed with feathers and rhinestones, and is often at a very high level of chaos. For fun, I dance with a modern ballet/cabaret dance company called The Love Show. I have been with them for five years now, and our shows are sort of vaudeville in nature, with singers, live musicians, an illusionist, and lots of hot dancing boys and girls!

What are you working on at the moment?
Currently I am working on my appetite for the Thanksgiving holiday! But when I am back in New York I will continue to audition, take voice lessons, take yoga classes (I’ve vowed to learn how to do a headstand by New Year’s) and prepare for a lovely job I have lined up in Las Vegas with Nikon. Other than that, I will do the same as any freelance artist in NYC: pray that the work keeps pouring in and that my big break is just around the corner!

What do you like and dislike about what you do?
I love that I get to travel to exciting places with my job, and I get to see the inside of some of the swankiest celebrity parties in the world. I work with amazing showgirls and fabulous drag queens, whose humor I adore, and makeup tips I have stolen. But at the end of the day, it’s still a job, and I go home to my apartment in Queens to my sweet boyfriend, and take off the eyelashes, and put on my sweat pants, and the glamour is washed away. And the only thing I dislike is when the phone doesn’t ring, and my diary planner is stark white, and I have that sinking feeling that the work has dried up, and panic sets in that I may have to get a ‘real job’.

Where did you grow up and how did this affect your life choices?
I grew up in Paris, Kentucky. The horse capital of the world; home to Secretariat; and supposedly the first stop light. It was a small town about 15 miles from a pretty big city, Lexington, so I grew up with the pleasure of knowing urban and rural worlds. I took dance classes at the local dance school and was cast in musicals in high school. Then in my junior year, I was selected to be in a summer programme called the Governor’s School for the Arts. It was a three week long arts intensive where I studied dance on a professional level with other kids from around the state. It was a total immersion in all disciplines of art. That’s when I realised I had to go on to do something artistic with my life. That programme helped me earn a scholarship to college where I got a degree in musical theatre and met some of the most influential people in my life. The programme was small and all the students worked closely with professors. They mentored us and really helped me to see that New York was the best option for me to find work and go for my passion!

What’s the best advice anyone’s ever given you?
A professor of mine at college once said, “Do something you like, that you can make good grades in” and I supposed the real work application would be, ” Do something you like, that you can make money doing.” And he was right, there’s no point in doing something you hate that you aren’t even successful doing.

What’s your number one recommendation?
My number one suggestion is support your local businesses, restaurants, and artists. It feels good, it makes sense, and Starbucks has enough money.