Misty Copeland Leaps Over Barriers to Become Principal at ABT

Misty Copeland is a rarity on many levels: She started ballet at 13, when many blossoming dancers are realizing they will not be making it a career. The precocious teen was a dance prodigy, moving to toe shoes within three months of starting lessons and to starring roles in local productions within 8 months. She was part of a custody battle between her dance teacher and her mom, when her mother wanted her to quit dance in middle school. Now, most amazingly, Misty Copeland and her soaring leaps have helped her surmount barriers to become a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre (ABT) – the first black principal dancer in the elite company’s 75-year history.

Copeland’s story was interesting enough to put her on the cover of TIME, garner a 60 Minutes profile and be told in her 2014 autobiography, Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina. All that was before today’s announcement by ABT that the ballerina, now 32 years old, was made a principal dancer, helping pave the way for others to realize that Black Swan/White Swan refers to costumes not skin tone.

Copeland has readily admitted in several interviews that she was repeatedly told when starting out that her color, body type (unlike many skeletal female dancers, she has a curvy figure) and late start would prohibit her from being successful in the notoriously snooty ballet world, much less a principal dancer in a internationally renowned, predominantly white company. (Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre and some other less-known companies are predominantly African-American.) But sheer talent, and hard work, propelled Copeland to leap over barriers put in her way, including injuries.

“I had moments of doubting myself, and wanting to quit, because I didn’t know that there would be a future for an African-American woman to make it to this level,” Copeland noted in a press conference Tuesday at the Metropolitan Opera House. “At the same time it made me so hungry to push through, to carry the next generation. So it’s not me up here — and I’m constantly saying that — it’s everyone that came before me that got me to this position.”

Born in Missouri, Copeland grew up in working class areas of Southern California. She and her siblings participated in after-school activities at the San Pedro Boys and Girls Club, where she shyly joined her first dance class and began her unusual journey. Her start at the Club has inspired her to volunteer and work with other underprivileged youth at New York area clubs, besides visiting the San Pedro one when on tour with the ballet company.

Copeland joined ABT in 2001. She became the first black ABT soloist in decades in 2007. Since then, she has tackled increasingly bigger roles, and become a public figure and one of the best known dancers in years. The publicity tour and interviews for her autobiography; her children’s book about The Firebird, a story ballet in which Copeland was a featured lead a couple of years ago; serving as a guest judge on So You Think You Can Dance, appearance in a Prince video, as well as starring in advertising campaigns for Under Armour, Coach, and Dr Pepper have added to her ballet box office appeal outside traditional dance circles. Copeland seemed to be on the verge of attaining a promotion to principal in 2012, when she starred in The Firebird, but injuries and a surgery sidelined her the next year.

The announcement that Misty Copeland finally made the giant leaps over racial and injury barriers to become an ABT principal dancer comes less than a week after another noteworthy triumph for her. Copeland made her New York debut dancing the starring Odette/Odile role in Swan Lake, which is considered to be one of the most important roles a ballerina can master, where she showed the costume color mattered, not the dancer’s.

Written and edited by Dyanne Weiss

Sources:
New York Times: Misty Copeland Is Promoted to Principal Dancer at American Ballet Theater
ABC News: Misty Copeland Is American Ballet Theatre’s First Black Female Principal Dancer
CNN: Misty Copeland is first black principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre

Photos courtesy of American Ballet Theatre.