While I love dancing, and even acting in 'ABCD' - 'Anybody Can Dance' - was fun, I remain, at heart, a choreographer.
My last show that I did on Broadway was - I hate to say this, but - 'Cats.' There you go. So I was doing 'Cats' on Broadway, and I injured my back. It was a really tough show.
It never occurred to me that I'd have a dance company.
I hoped, hoped, that maybe I'd be lucky enough to do something on Broadway, in the chorus.
When I first moved to New York, I was friends with a lot of dancers - people from Merce Cunningham's company and things like that.
With 'Dance Moms' in L.A., we film on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When we film in Pittsburgh, we film the same days, but we still dance in our studio when we're not filming, so I'm dancing every day except Sunday.
Choreography is amazing. I'm still a dancer, yet I transitioned into choreography then as a Creative Director. All of these creative elements are brought out of being a dancer. Directing is something that comes out of understanding movement and choreography. Directing movement is directing a dance piece.
It's expensive to get studio space and dancers. My whole first three years, I was sneaking around in the studios and getting kicked out of them. It was kind of depressing.
I remember watching Soulja Boy on YouTube over and over again to prepare for it. For the first one, I was up all night in my kitchen, practicing the dance, because I knew I had to dance with Timberlake and that guy can dance.
I did 'Viva Las Vegas' with Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret. By standing in for Ann-Margret for a week, I learned the feeling of being a star in a musical number.
I've always thought of the process of creating ballets as being this kind of team effort. It's not like being a painter, where you have your paint, and you have canvas, and you just go at it. I'm working with these living, breathing, functioning human beings, and they have their own thoughts and ideas about what works well movement-wise.
There's not one day that goes by that I'm not listening to one of my songs or in rehearsal for one of my songs or dancing to one of my songs.
We are just at the studio, me and my choreographers, we are spending like 30 nights and we are thinking, what is my next dance move? Because in Korea there are huge expectations about my dancing. So it was a lot of pressure.
You're dressed for dancing," she said in her throaty stage voice. "Being undressed for dancing occured to me, but I didn't think Merris would like it.
I was very personable and outgoing and was friends with most everybody in my class but I was a diehard dancer so I was constantly at dance classes and working toward my passion of dance.
I had been coming to New York, pretty much once a month, to dance on Broadway. I was offered a huge Broadway show but couldn't do it because my brother was having his huge Bar Mitzvah.
I've been trained in dancing and I used to be quite good, though I am a bit rusty right now. But I could probably brush up in a couple of months.
'The Company' was interesting. I didn't love it, although it might be compelling to someone who isn't a dancer. There wasn't a lot of dialogue, and you were just kind of observing the creative process of choreography and in class.
My workout is ballet class and rehearsal - I've never belonged to a gym.
I collaborated on most of my dance numbers, literally 50/50, with the choreographers I worked with.
I just think something about being in front of a live audience when you've finished a big dance that you've been working on for so long - I don't think anything can really beat that.
I liked to read but, being a dancer, I didn't have a lot of time to read.
I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is clean, virtually spotless if you don’t count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty.
It's really intense in our rehearsals; you have to get ready and condition your body.
Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon intimidated us all because she walked in and was going to be the dance captain. She was a great star, but she loved that kind of work as his assistant.
