A dance team moves together at a nightclub around 3am in East Flatbush.
Best friends Sarah and Chevelle perform a trick together during a party at a club in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
A crowd of partygoers sits on a pool table on the edge of the dance floor at a dancehall club down the street from Sarah's house in East Flatbush, around 2:30 am.
Sarah and her three of her girlfriends hit the floor when the faster songs preferred by the female dancers come on over the speakers. They balance on their hands, kicking their legs into splits over their heads.
Sarah's ballet shoes hang on the wall of her bedroom.
Sarah braids her brother's hair in their mother's home as her niece looks on.
Sarah's niece and her friends strike poses on the stoop of Sarah's home on a summer afternoon. Dancehall dancers often site their dance abilities as part of their Caribbean heritage. Young girls start to learn some of the less suggestive dance moves in a dance hall queen's repertoire very young, but Sarah's niece giggle and exclaims "We're too young!" when asked if she can dance like her auntie.
Backstage at a dance competition with her dance school's team, Sarah takes a moment to center herself before she performs.
Sarah stretches out in the cafeteria of high school where her dance school's team is preparing to perform in a dance competition.
Sarah's boyfriend David falls asleep on her shoulder in the audience between performances at her dancing school's competition in Long Island.
Sarah smokes in a friend's hallway before getting ready to attend a party that evening.
Chevelle checks her phone at a beach party.
Sarah, Velvet, and Syrin watch dancehall video's in Syrin's room, critiquing other dancers and learning new moves. Velvet's jaw drops while watching scenes from a Dancehall Queen competition.
Sarah lifts her arm to show the tattoo of ballet shoes on her side.
Velvet sits in Syrins room, where she and other dancers watch youtube videos of dancehall competitions and run through dance moves as the sun sets outside the window.
Velvet and friends smoke and watch the new Grand Theft Auto game being played in a friend's bedroom.
Sarah and her friends eat and chat on the stoop outside her house before going out for the evening. They watch the block carefully when cars round the corner, while gossiping and laughing and making plans for the evening.
A friend of Sarah's sits with her and others in the back of a car.
Sarah cuts the bottom off of a childhood jazz dance costume to make it into a crop top for the club that evening. As she picks up the scissors she says "I can't believe I'm doing this."
Sarah checks her reflection in a friend's mirror before heading out to a club for the evening.
Girls sip drinks and check out the crowd as a Dancehall night in East Flatbush begins at around 2am.
Fyah and Blacca dance on the floor at a nightclub.
A young couple poses for a portrait at a nightclub in East Flatbush as pair of women waits for the party to get started. One rests her head in boredom. Its a slow night at the club.
At a nightclub in East Flatbush, Sarah's best friend and dance team mate Velvet dances as a videographer tapes the scene and her friends throw dollar bills. They make the sign of gun with their hands in a gesture of approval for her dancing.
Sarah runs through some moves around midnight before a dancehall club fills up. The parties usually don't get crowded until around 2am.
March 20, 2013. After an intense rehearsal session in a team member's basement, the Zero Nation members blow off steam by playing with a cap gun, laughing and chasing each other around the room.
February 1, 2013. Syrin, the head of Zero Nation, wears a costume mask from a music video shoot at home in his room.
Sarah's cell phone sits on her text-themed bed spread. On the phone is a photo she took of her swollen foot immediately after the bullet was removed. The bullet entered through the back of her heel and had to be removed through an incision in the side of her foot.
Sarah, lies on a hospital bed, her manicured toes peeking out of her cast, medicated on high doses of pain killers, the day after she was shot in a drive by in the foot outside her family's home in East Flatbush. Her friends and dance team members rallied to her side, and spent the time joking and running through dance routines in her hospital room. Unable to participate, Sarah corrected the choreography from her bed.
Two weeks after being shot in the foot, Sarah climbs the steps to Syrin's house on her crutches, to take a break from the isolation of her bedroom and spend some time with friends. "I've never felt pain like this before," she says, "but I try to keep a smile on my face anyway."
Sarah's father in the kitchen of their home around 9am on the morning of New Years Eve.
A student at Sarah's dance school presses her arms against the wall on a break from running through a routine.
Sarah and Velvet horse around at a friend's house, despite Sarah's injured foot.
Sarah eats McDonalds and talks on the phone as her crutches lean behind her about a month after being shot in the foot.
A photograph of Sarah in her ballet costume around age 5 is tucked into her the mirror in her bedroom.
Septmber 1, 2014. Early on the morning of the Caribbean day parade, Sarah, and a friend put on their Mas costumes in a Flatbush Avenue shop.
September 1, 2014. Flatbush. Sarah and her friends "play mas" performing in the Caribbean Day parade. The annual parade features women in traditional costumes dancing through the borough. Sarah has participated since she was a child, and her ability to dance in this event is a testament to the near full recovery of her foot after the shooting. She has enrolled in Jobcore, a professional trade school where she will get a high school equivalency degree and study to be a nurse like her mother, starting in the fall of 2014.
