To write her new book, renowned ballerina Misty Copeland had to spend a few years moonlighting as a dance detective. At the heart of Black Ballerinas, out next week, is a question that has occupied the American Ballet Theatre principal ever since her promotion to soloist in 2007: How is it that Black dancers have been in ballet for ages, and so many people have forgotten about their legacy? As Copeland broke barriers in ballet, she began to learn about all of the people who broke them in the past, and more heartbreakingly, came close but were blocked by prejudice.
In the book, Copeland begins to correct the record by telling the life stories of 27 Black dancers—accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Salena Barnes. Still, there was one poignant mystery she wasn’t able to solve. Before her mentor and friend Frances Taylor Davis died in 2018, she told Copeland about the night in 1948 when she became the first African American to be invited to perform with the Paris Opera Ballet. “Frances longed for an artifact to memorialize her performance with the Paris Opera Ballet, and she held out hope that I could uncover a playbill from the show,” Copeland writes. But she was never able to track one down. “And so, my mission continues.”
In a recent video interview, Copeland explained that she included the story about the playbill in case a reader might have a copy of it. “I hope that people will jump in and help on this mission and journey,” she said. But at the same time, the experience helped her understand that erasing history is one way that racism helps perpetuate itself. If the evidence that something has changed disappears, it’s easy to convince everyone that it could never happen again.
The mission to retell the history and support the future of Black ballet dancers only became more urgent in 2020. “Going into the pandemic, I felt this interesting thing,” she said. “Yes I’m still young and in my prime for dancing, but I just feel like it’s the next generation’s moment, specially after the explosion of Black Lives Matter and the murder of George Floyd. To me, it was an opportunity to really empower the next generation to have a voice and to give them the tools to be able to have these conversations within these institutions. I’m excited to take a step back and to watch this next generation of Black and brown dancers grow into being leaders.”
Though Black Ballerinas is intended for younger readers, it’s full of information about the history and importance of dance that anyone can appreciate. For Copeland, it’s been a reminder of how thinking and talking about race in ballet has helped her stay committed to dancing. Now, she’s thinking about how to carry that legacy into the future.
Vanity Fair caught up with the ballerina to talk about why reclaiming history matters, why she thinks ballet is a lasting artform, and her admiration for Simone Biles.
Vanity Fair: Between performing, your book, and your many other projects, you seem to be the busiest person I can imagine. How do you do it all?
Misty Copeland: Oh, my God! To have so many amazing things that I have the privilege of doing and working on, that just keeps me going, you know? It’s fun work, and it’s work that is necessary.
Does it help that it’s a lot of very different work? I imagine that writing a book is a very different process than rehearsing for a show.
From one hour to the next, it’s different, especially since the pandemic. Things have changed so drastically, for me, but I’m getting to dive in even deeper to things outside of my dancing career, that won’t only benefit the ballet world. It keeps me on my toes that everything is so different. Writing is extremely creative, and it takes focus, and it takes discipline, and it takes creativity, which is why I fell in love with writing at such a young age.
How did the process of writing and researching start in the first place?
I don’t think that the concept was as clear and concrete, as the book is now, but I’ve wanted to do something like this, you know, probably, since I was 23 years old. I’m 39 now, so it’s been a long journey of feeling like, as a Black ballerina, we don’t have a comprehensive documented history. I think people—just because there hasn’t been enough clarity and distinction, Black people included—confuse classical dance with modern dance and think we have [legendary African American dance company] Alvin Ailey, and we have all these Black dancers onstage, but that’s not classical dance. Modern dance has been accepting a variety of body types and skin colors from its creation.
The classical ballet world is such a particular place. Black ballerinas have been excluded, especially in terms of having their history documented, but they have been contributors in classical dance from the beginning of time. This is in no way a full comprehensive list of the Black ballerinas that have existed in the world, but it’s a beginning. Really, I wanted to show the dancers who have impacted my life and my journey in some way. Whether they’re coming up now, younger dancers just now getting into companies and out of schools, or dancers throughout our history. There’s a standard that’s set, but it’s really to spark interest for people who want to join in on the efforts of uncovering our history and want to continue to add to the list.
When you started this, how did you discover that there was so much out there that just isn’t remembered?
Growing up, I actually only had four years of classical ballet training before I moved to New York City and joined American Ballet Theatre. Within that time my teacher did so much to prepare me—that’s not heard of, you know, that’s an extremely concentrated amount of time, and I still wasn’t prepared. I didn’t know all of the French language and terminology for the ballet technique when I became a professional, so I was really learning on the spot. Learning about Black dancers was not at all a part of my journey. It wasn’t until I had spent a couple years in ABT, and as a Black woman and as someone whose mother raised me as a Black girl to be very comfortable in my skin in that way, It was shocking to realize, like, wow, I’m the only Black woman in this company, and that would go on for 10 years. That’s when I kind of started to do my own research and my own digging.
My promotion to soloist was another layer, where I was being told, “Well, there has been another Black soloist with ABT.” That was a dagger to my heart. How am I a part of this incredible history and lineage of American ballet and I don’t know about this Black dancer that had come before me? It’s been a part of that realization that I own so many history books of American Ballet Theatre, from the time they were created with Lucia Chase as the artistic director, and there’s no mention of these Black dancers. It gave me a second and third and fourth wind, the more that I found out about other ballet dancers that have contributed. Though I’m alone at ABT, I’m not alone in this, and there have been people doing the work that have gotten me here. More so than being a dancer and being on the stage, I feel like I’m a vessel to be able to share these dancers’ stories, and give them that acknowledgment and recognition that they never received.
It reminds me of Simone Biles at the Olympics this year. Afterward, she said in an interview that it frustrates her sometimes that we have to depend on the Black and brown people who are just trying their hardest to save a thing. It hurts to have to be the person who makes that sacrifice. Do you ever think about that, not letting something destroy you even if you do love the art form so much?
It’s hard. I have had these conversations with my husband for 15 years, and for me, I feel personally that this is my responsibility. I don’t think that every Black ballet dancer should have to feel that weight and pressure. It’s just not fair. It just doesn’t make sense, and not everyone is built for it. When you use that phrase, Black people have to work 10 times harder, so many people don’t take that literally or just don’t understand it. It’s not just the sweat equity that you’re putting in—it’s all the other stuff that comes with it that white people do not even have to think about. It’s those daily battles, those microaggressions that you’re dealing with that shouldn’t have to be a part of our journey.
It shows how incredible Simone Biles is. Not only is she the elite athlete superstar that she is but she’s also fighting this battle, for an entire generation and representing an entire sport. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to see the fearlessness and sacrifice and the strength in someone like that. It’s mind-blowing to me that people can look at that experience and look at her and say, she’s given up or she’s a loser, or whatever. It’s mind-blowing to me.
The book made me think about how ballet is both a visual art form and all about physical strength and athleticism. Because of that, it’s this really interesting place where society’s assumptions about beauty and about physicality and race all come together. You explain all the coded words that people use to put down Black dancers—describing what’s wrong with their “aesthetic” or how they affect the “blending” and that whole set of microaggressions? How did you come to understand those and develop defenses against them?
From my experience and from talking to the Black ballet community, you know when you feel those micro or macroaggressions. You know it. For me, it was really having an incredible support system around me to help me to decipher how to deal with it and how to manage my expectations of other people. That was something that I always stood firm on. There was no way I was going to exist in this white company and not express my experiences to my colleagues or with the artistic staff. But it was all about how I was going to do that. That’s been a long process, and something that I want to openly share with other Black dancers, how to approach these institutions when you feel like you don’t have power don’t have a voice, and if you do speak they feel threatened, or you’re too emotional, or it’s just these things they don’t want to deal with.
It’s really hard, when you’re writing about people in history who have experienced racism but have also done very important things in their own regard, to balance those two modes in the story. Sometimes people go too far in the other direction and focus too much on the personal qualities of the people and downplay the barriers because it’s a bummer. Did you think about how to give enough credence to the individuality and the uniqueness of the dancers, but also reflect the structural forces that all of these dancers faced?
It was hard, and it took a lot of rewrites! My first go at it, I thought, this is sad! Because there’s so many hardships that Black ballet dancers have had to experience. What I hope makes this unique is that it’s not just another historical book. It’s my opinion, it’s my experience and through my eyes and my perspective, of how I’ve interpreted these dancers’ experiences in comparison with my own and how they’ve impacted me. That’s why I feel so much power every time I go on to the stage, because I feel like I’m carrying all of these people’s stories and hurt and pain and experiences with me. It’s deep-rooted. It’s a big sacrifice when you are a part of an art form like this, when structurally every at every turn it’s telling you, no, you don’t belong. For these people to continue to do the work and find the love and passion, because you can see, to the core of what this pure incredible art form can do for a person. It’s incredible.
At every turn, the stories you tell reminded me why ballet is so important and why it’s something that we continue to sort of return to, even as the dance and movement worlds change. It is such an important connection to the past, and the people who have been rejected by the art form are also the ones doing the most to save it.
For the people that are doing the work, the Black and brown people, we can see through all of the crap. I constantly say this, but the ballet technique isn’t racist. The ballet technique we’ve held on to for over 400 years because it’s such an incredibly pure thing that hasn’t had to change. I can’t think of another art form that hasn’t evolved its core—that’s because it’s so brilliant. It’s all the other stuff, people coming in with their opinions and their bias, that’s created all the issues. But I think, to be able to see straight to the purity of the ballet technique, get rid of a lot of these stories that are not stories that people can relate to today or the lives that people in our society are living, and that’s how we we move to the next level with this art form.
From my own experience of dancing when I was growing up, there is something about starting as a child, where it becomes your entire personality and you can’t see yourself as anything else. One thing I’ve appreciated about seeing more athletes and artists speaking out about race is that it’s clear that having that outside identity can really help you keep perspective. You think, I’m not only this athlete, I’m not only this artist, I don’t have to give my whole personality to this thing. I’m also a Black person, I’m also a woman, I’m also so many different things.
When ballet came into my life, I forgot about all the other parts of me, and it was a struggle finding that balance again. As a Black person, in America especially, you just don’t have that liberty to forget about that side of you. That hit me like a ton of bricks when I became a professional dancer. I went from being raised by a Black woman and being so comfortable in that identity as a Black girl, as a biracial girl, and being seen by society as a Black girl. I was so comfortable in that identity, but when ballet came in, it just took over, and it was just so beautiful and so empowering. I was like, I’m nothing but a ballerina. The reality is that’s not how you’re going to be treated and that’s not how you’re going to be viewed. It’s unfair, but again it’s our reality.
It’s healthy in the end to find that balance, and I think that’s something that a lot of ballerinas either never do or struggle to do once they leave this career. You’re lost. Because I’m a Black woman and I was faced with that early on in my professional career, I’ve found more balance in my life. It’s made me a better artist, and it’s made me a better dancer by not just seeing myself as this one-dimensional thing.
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