After dancing around his house since he was little, Joe González was chosen to be part of Boston Ballet’s Citydance program, which provides tuition-free dance classes to selected Boston Public School third-grade students.

When the free program ended, however, his family couldn’t afford to keep him in dance classes. But his mother refused to let that dream fade.

Two years later, she found a nearby school created for Black dancers: Roxbury Center for the Performing Arts .

“And that’s where I grew up,” González said in an interview with MassLive prior to the now 37-year-old’s performance with Complexions Contemporary Ballet at The Hanover Theatre & Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Worcester on Friday, Nov. 7.

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