Making a difference. 

Bachelor Nation fans first met Alicia Holloway on Season 25 of “The Bachelor.”

She was introduced as a “professional ballerina” and she wasn’t kidding! When Alicia was only 13, she began pursuing her career as a dancer.

Through years of dedication and commitment to her craft, she has been proudly living her dream and continues to perform with some of the most prestigious dance companies.

Alicia has been performing in “The Nutcracker” for the holiday season and recently shared about a moment that touched her heart. 

In a new video she posted online, Alicia said, “You guys, I’m unwell. So I’m a professional ballerina and I’ve been performing ‘The Nutcracker’ basically all of December. The first set of shows, I was performing as the Dewdrop Fairy in ‘The Waltz of the Flowers…’ As I’m leaving the theater, a Black lady comes up to me. What she said, I literally have not stopped thinking about since that moment.”

Alicia then shared how this woman started to thank her over and over again for her performance and expressed how much it meant to her. 

Alicia recalled, “She looks at me with tears in her eyes and she says, ‘I’m in my mid-20s and I have yet to see live a Black professional dancer that looks like me onstage. You have no idea what I would have done to be a little girl and to see a Black dancer on stage. I never saw that type of representation…’ So to be a full-grown adult and to see somebody that looks like her onstage, literally in her words, made her entire Christmas season.”

The Bachelor Nation star continued her story of this touching moment, sharing that she started crying as well and had other similar encounters throughout the season. 

“When I’m performing, I just think about dancing,” she said. “I don’t necessarily think about the impact that my dancing has on an audience member… But throughout my ‘Nutcracker’ season, I had at least four other of these type of interactions with Black audience members that came to see the shows I was in.”

Alicia then stated how this experience impacted her and what she learned from it.

“Basically what I learned from all of it, which I feel like I obviously already knew, is that representation is so freaking important! Don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise. Because the amount of people that have thanked me for being a professional brown ballerina is insane. That’s why I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing as a ballerina,” she expressed.