CB: How long were you with the ballet?

BN: I danced with them until 1998. I was modeling at the same time and sometimes I would get permission to leave the ballet and go with the modeling agency. So I would go and come back. I finally left the ballet to stay with the modeling.

CB: Anyone who knows you or has seen you knows you have a very highly developed fashion sense. Is that where it came from, when you were modeling?

BN: Yes, that's where I learned about hair and clothes. That was where I learned how to put it all together. I had been modeling for a long time. I started modeling in 1989 and the Sotiba Boys sometimes did modeling because we were sponsored by the company Sotiba, which made the Senegalese fabric.

CB: We also saw you in a video. What was happening there?

BN: Was that the one where I was wearing black clothes?

CB: Yes.

BN: And I was real skinny?

CB: That's the one.

BN: [laughing] you know in Senegal when you are popular the people want to see your face. I think that was in 1990 or 1991. The people making the video will come and give you a couple of CFAs and ask you to be in the video. Just to look fashionable. I was in a lot of videos. [laughing] oh, my goodness I was so skinny then.

CB: When did you decide to come to the US?

BN: In 1998. I came for a fashion show. We had a couple of shows in Houston and in NY. I just stayed. Then I went back in 2001. I came here with the fashion people. I was over here for months and I didn't know anyone who did African dance. Then a friend of mine said that he knew these people who did African dance. They were African Americans but they did African dance. They put me in touch with Kauna Mujamal and Kabibi Ajanku from Sankofa Dance Theater. I had met them in Senegal before. At the time, they couldn't understand my accent or my English, but they got directions and came to where I was. When they came, I danced for them and they loved it. I started teaching for them for a couple of months and I choreographed some numbers. I was so happy to be dancing, I missed it so much.

After that I met Willa, she was teaching at a church. She hurt her Achilles tendon and she gave me the class. It was successful and it got bigger. We started at the church, then went to Robert Coleman elementary school, then to Coppin State College. For a while we were in downtown Baltimore at the Eubie Blake Arts Center and now we're at the Y.