Seventeen-year-old Taylor Fikes, of Bowie, is studying ballet, Russian language, history, arts and culture at the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. Did you always know you wanted to be a professional ballerina?

No, I didn’t. I really enjoyed ballet but I actually took two years off and played basketball. Basketball was fun, but I realized later that I wanted to do ballet as a career. I had started ballet at 9, but then quit at 11ish because [of] the scheduling between games and rehearsal.

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