Words in the next few slides by the brave and inspiring @keanu.uchida . You are the catalyst for this conversation and I’m in awe of what you achieve every single day. I’ve struggled with the thought of my story being shared with the public the last few weeks. Not because I was scared to speak up along with these amazing people, but because I was scared that what I went through wasn’t enough. I was scared that what I went through wasn’t “bad” enough to make me feel used, neglected, and mistreated. I told many people about what I went through after it happened. While I was met with love and support by some, the most common response was ,”Well that’s just what happens in the dance world.” “Sometimes that’s just what you have to go through to make it in the industry.” And I believed it. People experience so much worse than me, so why should I be affected by what I went through? Why should I let it bother me that this man is misconstruing my niceness as flirting and repeatedly making sexual advances towards me even though I say no? It’s just the dance world. It’s the world we live in. And I CHOSE to be here. As if it wasn’t always my world. As if we all weren’t born into this world. These responses, sadly enough, made me think that I needed to be sexually harassed to feel validated in the dance world. FFF that. FFFF that! I’m not going to put my feelings to the side and let myself be manipulated and mistreated to achieve what I want to achieve here. We’re not gonna let this slide anymore. Dance isn’t some world that only the top few choose who’s let in. This is OUR world. EVERYBODY who’s EVER stepped on a dance floor. And we’re not taking this shit anymore. WE make the rules. And harassment of ANY kind is not tolerated! I’m sick of watching all of my friends experiences be swept under the rug. We are here and we are going to change this industry into what it needs to be! And I’m so proud to be speaking about this change next to all these amazing people. What we went through is real. Every side of it. And no one should feel like what they went through isn’t. We are a community. We are a family. And we need to start loving and healing like one. ❤️- To the future