okada: it's about your body.i'm not good enough or whatever. we really believe in a non-competitive environment so that you feel like you can dance and really enjoy yourself and not feel like you have to be a professional and look like a skinny ballerina. and i think that that is really important to who we are. it's that openness to be able to, um, welcome anybody here. i didn't understand what professional dance was, but once i did, and i started to be physical and to express myself as an artist, and all these things came together, it just was the perfect marriage, and i just started to flourish. way: it's particularly important to give them an environment where they can develop their self-esteem at a women-led organization and women-started. we've had to face that more than men have. certainly 50 years ago, we had to face more. although the company has always been multicultural and multigendered, the leadership structure and the creative structure has been very influenced by the idea of participation and actual