Misty Copeland

Well, first of all, I truly think that ballet was this perfect missing piece in my life. You know, it helped me to develop. So I don't, it's almost like the antithesis of what most people experience when they're in dance, where I feel like a lot of people almost lose themselves in sense of identity. Yeah. And don't mature and are socially underdeveloped and all of these things.

And I feel like the opposite thing happened for me. I think that it opened me up and it helped me to understand myself more. And I was craving consistency. I was craving discipline. I mean, I would go from day to day, night to night, not knowing anything. where we were sleeping, not knowing if we were going to have food, not knowing how I was going to get to school, if I was going to school.

So to be able to go into a studio every day at 3 p.m. and know I was going to do plies and tendus and degages and rond de chambre, like as a child to know what's coming, that safety is so important. And I think that it helped. I feel like I grew and developed as a person immensely in like the first three years of dance.

I feel like it's ingrained in me now, like that structure and that discipline because of ballet, that it's helped me in how I approach everything in my life.

I think it was having—being able to see her point of view and her perspective. I mean, as a young girl and, you know, not always knowing why she made certain decisions. I think those were the things I didn't understand when, you know, through my, I don't know, eight-year-old eyes, I'm like, but why do we have a home? Why don't—you know, it seemed so simple and clear. And I think—

Thank you so much for having me.

you know, with age and as a wife and as a mom, I definitely have a different understanding of the choices that she made and why. And when you're thinking about six children and just being able to provide for them in some way, you know, as a single parent, you know, that was extremely difficult. I think that I have just more of an understanding that she never really got to grow up or, you

became a mom, you know, at a young age. And I think, you know, being adopted and being an only child and kind of wanting to create her own family, but not really being prepared to do so, I think I just have a lot more empathy and understanding of why certain things happen the way they did.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's been a narrative that's kind of been created and just kind of carried on throughout my career, which is why I think people are often shocked when they see me and they're like, oh, you're very petite, like you look like a ballerina. And I think the narrative that's been created is really that, you know, I don't have the body. I'm too big. I'm too this.

But it's so complex. Yeah. You know, at 13 years old, the reason that things happened so quickly for me was because I was so natural. I had all the, you know, the right body proportions that they look for. You know, I had a small head and long legs and long arms and long feet. And I was flexible and I was strong. And then I became a professional dancer.

And all of a sudden, I no longer had the right body type. So, you know, I went from being a prodigy to all of a sudden being, you know, like a you're wrong for dance and you're this. And it's kind of, it was like shocking to me, but it was like, this is just crazy that I could go from being this prodigy, this ideal Balanchine ballerina, besides my skin color, to, you know, not being right.

And so up until my final year, you know, 2019, when I was performing, I remember seeing reviews about me being too big and not, you know, and it's just wild, the narrative that just continues forever. That we really have to pay attention to and kind of use our own eyes and not kind of be told what's in front of us when we have eyes and a brain and can make those decisions.

You know, I don't have a clear answer on that. It's, you know, this has been, in all honesty, I've wanted to just kind of fade away into the background, which is not really possible. I think that the legacy of what I've created in terms of the way that I'm carrying so many stories of Black dancers who have come before me, like, I can't just disappear because

It is a nightmare. I'm 42. I'll be 43 by the time the show happens. And it's been five years since I've really been physical. And all of those injuries that have been there, they're awake and they're angry. And I'm dealing with a lot right now. I have torn a labral tear that happened during my training recently.

And then I found out I have all these other injuries, like old injuries that I never like acknowledged and just danced through. You know, my doctor was like, I think you should stop dancing. I'm like, I'm trying. I'm trying to. I'm not putting pointe shoes back on at this point. Like I've decided that I want to go on stage again. And not be kind of self-conscious of things.

And I've had this mindset throughout my career that like a year will go by and I will never be that person again. You know, I'll never be that body again. I will never move like I did, you know, at 13, at 24, you know, at 32. And so it's just kind of finding comfort in that, that like this is the new body I'm in. So it's very humbling.

But the reason that I've fallen in love with dance is this consistency of being in a studio and feeling this sense of protection without the outside noise. And that's been missing from my life over the course of these five years that I've been away from dance.

So it's nice to be back in this kind of protective bubble where you can just focus on what you're not looking at a phone, you're just listening to music and you're moving your body. And there's something that feels so necessary, like to have that in my life.

benefited your dancing absolutely i mean that's the thing i think that especially every ballerina experiences you know the older you get the less you can do physically but the more life experiences you have to pull from and so there's something so beautiful about ballerinas as they age and so that part's really exciting again i get into the studio and i'm like i'm I don't care how high my leg is.

You know, I don't care how high I'm jumping. I have just like a different purpose. You know, it's not about, you know, oh, today I didn't do as many pirouettes or I wasn't on my leg. I wasn't on balance. You know, all of these other things that are like a distraction, I think.

So to me, it's a beautiful thing to be at this point in my career and to be able to have control over what I'm performing that feels really good.

Yes, I do.

I have it in my bag over there.

You can open it and dig through. I don't know what's in there. You can unzip it and just, yeah. Yeah, I started journaling probably around the same time that I started at the Boys and Girls Club when I was seven years old. And this one, there's not much in it, but it was around the time that I was pregnant with my son Jackson and then right after I gave birth to him that I was going to share.

April 12th of 2022. And Jackson was born April 2nd. So it's 70 degrees and beautiful outside. The windows are open and there's a breeze moving through the house. My baby is asleep beside me, his chest rising and falling so gently. It's like watching a little miracle. Linda, who's my mother-in-law. Linda's in the kitchen cooking and the entire place smells like love. Olu, who's my husband.

Olu's in the shower and for a moment everything feels still and full. I can't believe he's ours. He's so small and so vulnerable and yet so powerful in how he's changed me. The love I feel for him is overwhelming. It's deep, pure, and bigger than anything I've ever known. I've spent so much of my life in motion, chasing perfection, discipline, and control. But this, this is different.

I think there has to be an official closing to my time at American Ballet Theatre, this company that has meant everything to me and has given me the opportunities and the platform that I have. And so, you know, it was in 2019 that I think I was processing that opportunity. I think this is the end of this chapter.

It's surrender. It's presence. It's joy.

Yeah. I mean, I think that it being a mother and having my son has like allowed me to let go even more. And maybe that's why it's been easy for me to transition, you know, and easy to, you know, that this is a new part of my identity as well. And it doesn't have to all be ballerina anymore. And as a performer, so much focus is on you.

And to be able to now not do that and to be giving it to my son and for my family in a different way, it's so fulfilling and it just feels like the right time to do it.

Dance is such an integral part of every culture. And for some reason, it's not valued in the same way that music is or fashion is or food is.

Hi.

I'm good. How are you? I'm good.

There were other stickers in my locker, too, that were probably worse than that. I would say that I've been at that same locker since I was 17 years old. So it's been a long time. And it definitely, those were during very rebellious times where it was like, I mean, I don't know if you'd say rebellious, but feeling like I was working uphill. And so there was a lot of that in the beginning.

I feel, especially internally, definitely not something I was like screaming. You know, I've always been very introverted. So it was like I'm expressing myself and the inside of my locker.

And though I wasn't saying it out loud to the world, you know, I've already kind of moved on to that next place of what I want to be doing.

Oh, God, this is so inappropriate. My boss is like a diaper full of shit and always on my ass. Oh, my God. I mean, I was young.

I think that... Whenever you're approaching a situation where things have been done a certain way for forever and change needs to happen, that there's going to be really difficult and uncomfortable times. And I think that that was 15 years of my career.

where I felt like I needed to fully be who I am and not bend and twist to fit what I thought they wanted or what I'm seeing in front of me, which I will never be able to be that because I'm not a white woman and I don't fit into this idealized mold of what a ballerina is supposed to be.

And so my relationship with the company, with my artistic director, with the dancers in the company completely has evolved through that time. But it took a lot of patience.

Yeah, you know, I go with my instinct a lot. And during the pandemic, George Floyd, it felt like the time to speak up and, you know, shine a light on the injustice that so many have felt for so long and give a really clear, like, you know, perspective and example. And I think that we're in a place now where it's so muddy and

And I think that, I mean, I don't want to say that, yes, like, you know, we're trying to stay away from backlash, but it's like, You lose focus on what the work really is when there's all this other outside noise around it, rather than, like I said, you know, you're putting your head down and you're doing work.

Like I'm in these communities and I'm having these conversations and I'm, you know, creating programs that will go beyond this, you know, this administration. And that to me is what's important is that we keep consistent and doing the work and

in a way that, you know, is not going to, I guess, ruffle any feathers and have focus on us where there's funding taken away, where, you know, it's really complicated.

And I think that this is bigger than... the language that we're using. This is not something that has just come about post-George Floyd or because of this administration. This is work that I've been doing since I started ballet. It's work that's undeniable when you are a minority. That, you know, it just is what it is and you're doing it. So again, this isn't something new.

This isn't some trend that we're on. It's real important work that's affecting real lives every day.

Um, it was the very first time in my career that I felt fulfillment, I think is the right word. And I feel like I got to a point where it was like, I think I've done everything I can on the stage. And I think that contributed to the way I felt when I was performing. You know, I don't think that I had the same light that I've had throughout my career in

Yes. Through our Be Bold program, through the Misty Copeland Foundation, we're in the Bronx and we're in Harlem. And a lot of these people with this administration and post the pandemic pulled their children out of schools for fear of a lot of things, you know, not having citizenship or whatever it is, you know, that they, the fear of ICE, you know, but this is like the one thing.

community social outlet that they have. So I guess it is different in a way that like we're having those real conversations like, am I safe to come in and take this class? But this is it. This is all I have. This is like a lifeline. And it's also a beautiful escape and it's healing. And it's just so important and necessary for our society, for our communities.

It is so frustrating. I'm constantly having these conversations with my producing partner, with my team, through my production company, as we're constantly trying to prove that dance is such an integral part of every culture and that for some reason it's not valued in the same way that music is or fashion is or food is.

And it's so mind-blowing because, I mean, I could stand in a room and ask how many of you have experienced have danced in your life. Everyone's going to raise their hand. It's a part of our culture. And for some reason, we don't allow ourselves to embody that concept and idea. So I don't know that I have an answer for that or why we try to resist. To me, it's mind-blowing.

And the fact that I sit on call after call and pitch after pitch trying to prove to people that you know, everyone dances and wants to see dance. It just has to be done the right way. And I think with an authentic voice behind it.

I definitely read it, but I think I was very young when I read it.

Yes, I very much remember this, exactly what you just said. And one thing that I wholeheartedly believe in and stand behind is that the ballet technique is one of the most perfect and beautiful things I've ever experienced. And I don't think that's the issue. And I don't think that that's something that people can't connect with.

it hasn't needed to change in hundreds of years because it's just, I think, perfection. And I'm experiencing it in real time, again, with these young kids that I'm teaching in communities that, like, there's no connection. They don't care about ballet. Their parents are like, what?

And without knowing it, you know, the pandemic hit and I had my final performances really in classical works. And I remember one of my last performances of Swan Lake. I think it was the last performance I did of Swan Lake. It was at Wolf Trap in Virginia, the beautiful outdoor amphitheater. And it feeling like the best performance I'd ever had of Swan Lake.

And showing them the value of the discipline, the value of the technique, and how it connects to so many things that they do in their lives. And I think it has to be fed to us in the right way.

And I think that when it's exclusive and you don't see people that represent a broad range of people and you don't see the real complexity of what a dancer's experience is, but this narrow view, you know, where, again, you're this skinny white girl and you're being tortured and abused and you're having an affair with the choreographer and, you know, all of these tropes and stereotypes. It's like,

If we keep that narrow view and we just keep perpetuating it, then no one's going to want to be a part of it. So I truly believe that it's not a dying art form if we handle it with care moving forward.

I hope that... You know, I don't even have hopes. I think that... I don't have hopes and dreams for what's going to happen that night. I think that I'm going to go out there feeling in control of the decision that I've made to do it, the pieces that I'm choosing to dance, the shape that I'm going to be in, because it's like... I only have control over so much.

You know, what's so interesting is that... After I saw you, you know, I had done the shoot in the morning. And it was the first time I've done a shoot without wearing pointe shoes, really. I mean, I've done fashion shoots and things like that, but really like a movement shoot. And I left thinking that wasn't me.

You know, almost like feeling like a fraud. Like, I'm like in my bare feet. I'm like, I'm used to being on pointe and just like really moving so freely in a way that I know. And after the shoot, I... pulled my pointe shoes out, brought them into class. I've been on pointe now for three classes and I'm considering wearing pointe shoes for my final performance.

So I want to allow myself the freedom to do what feels right and feels good because I want to enjoy myself.

And I think I had gotten to a place of... of just letting go of what the critics think. You know, even once I became a principal dancer, I was getting so much criticism about whether or not I should be in that position as a Black woman. Am I technically up for the challenge? That technicality, those words are often used with people of color.

And I remember I spent that whole year of 2019, I brought in a new teacher that was literally retraining me Because I was, like, striving to reach other people's standards of what they thought. And so that final performance, I let go, and it was an incredible last Swan Lake. I've always known that I was going to leave on my own terms.

And that I wasn't going to be, like, being pulled off by my ankles. Like, get off the stage. It's over. Yeah, the hook. I've always known that I wasn't going—that wasn't going to be my experience anymore.

I have this conversation often with my husband in that, you know, I think that I am a performer because it has given me the most beautiful escape and voice and sense of freedom coming from the background that I come from. You know, coming from being houseless for most of my upbringing, not always having, I don't know, I guess a sense of consistent like parental figures in my life.

And I never wanted to be like in the limelight. You know, I wanted to be not seen or heard. But there was something that happened when I was introduced to dance that it was the most stable thing I'd ever experienced in my life. And so, yeah, I don't think that's ever what's kind of like gotten me up every morning or gotten me on stage is this like need for like approval from the audience.

It was like I needed to dance. I didn't need all the other stuff that comes with it. And the work that I feel like I should be doing now is more behind the scenes dance.

I feel like, to me, it's never been about me, and it should never have been about me. I think it should have been about a broader understanding that people from our community, from Black and brown communities, are interested and do want to be in these spaces. They just need to see themselves. Not necessarily. They need to be introduced and feel like it's something that they're being invited into.

And so... You know, I've never felt like I've gotten to this place and I've been given this opportunity because I am the best Black dancer to ever exist. Like, that is so far from reality. I think I was the first at American Ballet Theater to be given an opportunity.

And there's not enough schools, there's not enough access to communities that wouldn't otherwise, you know, be introduced to classical dance and teachers who look like them and healthy and nurturing environments for them to train in. And that, to me, is the work that needs to be done. It's there on the ground. And then it's behind the scenes in these ballet companies. It's the board of directors.

You know, even for me to sit on the board of Lincoln Center is a huge deal.

I think often... choreographers or whoever it may be, don't even know what their movement might look like on different body types and different types of people. And so it's hard to say like, yes, this is okay, or it's just your taste. Like, do you really know? Do you even really know what the possibilities are of seeing your movement that could look

even more incredible or bring a whole new idea out of you and make you go even further with, you know, choreography. But, you know, Black people have been told for generations and generations, like, you all have flat feet, so you're not going to be in pointe shoes. Your butts are too big. It's like, we don't all look this way, and that's not all bad anyways.

And so, you know, I think that it's really about opening your mind to the possibilities of what can be created when you see something done. on a body in a way that you're not used to.

I don't think that my thinking has changed. I think that my whole career is proof that when you have diversity and in certain spaces or in every space, but in my instance in ballet, there's so much richness and community that people come together and want to understand each other and want to be a community together. And I feel like my career is literal proof of that.

Thinking of so many young black and brown people that didn't even know that Lincoln Center was a place they could step foot in. And when they see my poster on the front and they feel like, you know, and it opens their minds up to a whole new world. And to me, it's not just about coming to see me.

It sparks their interest to want to participate and to want to learn more about the art form and whatever may take place at Lincoln Center as well. But I think that it brings us together. I think that art is the most incredible way to build bridges and no matter what political party you're in. Yeah, I can't think of a better way to show the power of representation than through my career.

I think that we're just kind of keeping our heads down and staying the course. I don't think that it's about creating this big hoopla in public, but I think that continuing to be really intentional about the real work. And I think that that's being done through Lincoln Center.

I think there are a lot of other institutions that need to follow suit in terms of just, again, I think that it's reflected in the work that we're doing. I don't think that there's any real shifts or changes that need to be made. Just continue doing the work. It's all with the same mission in mind. And again, I don't think we have to like scream it from the rooftops.

It's like you put talent in places that it should be and you will see diversity naturally or organically happen. Yeah.

That's exactly where we need to start. Solve that problem. Done. Yeah, I think that... I think you have to take the leap and your audience is only as, you know, informed as you make them. And I think that if you just kind of keep perpetuating the same thing over and over again, that's all they're going to know. And then that becomes their taste. They're like, well, that's what I want to see.

But how do they even know if that's all they know, if that's all they see? And so I really think that it's about taking the leap and learning. And I know it's tough. I mean, we're not in a time where the arts are being supported and it's difficult financially for so many companies, especially in the States. And so I think that it's a balance.

It's a balance of some risk and then leaning on the things that people will definitely come and see.

Yes, it was my experience a lot when I first joined. Being the, you know, earthy character, you know, I fought so hard to be given opportunity in classical works because often the black and brown dancers were told, that's not, you know, we're using you for the more contemporary, the more modern works, but...

I definitely think that I've seen a big change at American Ballet Theatre in particular in terms of the way that they view casting. I've definitely been a voice in having these tough conversations.

I mean, I remember being in my early 20s and going into the office and speaking to my artistic director and being terrified and not knowing how to really articulate myself, but being really intentional about how I approached the conversations and

To ask for different roles and to really express, you know, that I feel like this is happening because of X, Y, and Z. You know, I'm a Black woman. I'm the only one here. And I want to be given opportunity. And I think I'm not because I'm a Black woman. And to go in there and really be clear and be intentional, but also have grace.

Instead of going in there like, you know, ready to fight, though I think I was fighting in my own way. And so I think that there has been change made, but we still have a long way to go.