(Photo: Jieming Tang) Gabrielle Chou — Music — From Pembroke Pines, Florida — “I’m an artist because I constantly look for meaning in the world around me and there is no other way to say the things I want to say. When you’re on stage, the stage is yours, the space is yours, the time is yours to do as you please. In the most high-pressure and vulnerable of situations lies the potential to reach, beyond the normal or everyday, the essence of who we are. It might be just one in a hundred performances, or just a handful in your lifetime, but it’s ‘that moment’ of connection that motivates me to keep pushing myself to my limits.”