Dancer and educator Courtney Celeste Spears explains how dance helped her to defy the expectations of an artist. This talk looks at how the arts—and tapping into your inner passions instead of suppressing them—can give us the keys to unlocking our greatest potential. Courtney Celeste Spears, of Bahamian descent, is a global dance educator and former dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where she performed in more than 20 countries. She graduated summa cum laude from the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program, received the Princess Grace Kelly Award in 2015, completed Harvard Business School’s “Crossover into Business” program, and was most recently named as one of Forbes magazine’s 2024 “30 Under 30.” Currently based in the Bahamas, Spears is the director of ArtSea Dance, an organization aimed at uplifting dancers in the Caribbean, and the director of two celebrated dance programs. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx