Misty Copeland

And it really broadened my audience and appeal and brought people to ABT that had not been before.

And being able to show a whole new audience...

maybe that had never seen ballet before, me dancing on pointe on top of his piano was an incredible opportunity.

You know, it's interesting.

When we first started working together, so the first time that I toured with him traveling through France and dancing on different stages, and he just let me improvise.

He would say like, I'm going to, you know, these songs you'll dance to tonight and, you know, give you a cue to leave when it's time to go.

And then as he was preparing for his Welcome to America tour, he really included me in the whole preparation for it.

I mean, I was there at Paisley Park and he was working around when I could perform with him when I wasn't

performing with American Ballet Theater.

So we decided on one song and it was The Beautiful Ones.

And then he had a whole idea for choreography.

At the time, we were preparing to do Alexei Ratmansky's, he's a choreographer.

of ABT's Nutcracker.

It was a new version that he was putting together.

And so we would be performing it at the Brooklyn Academy of Music at BAM, but we were rehearsing it at NJPAC at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

And so I would be with ABT all morning, all day, into the night and rehearsing the Nutcracker until like 10 p.m.,

And then Prince would come in a limo and pick me up from New Jersey and take me to either one of the theaters that we were performing at or he would take me back to his hotel and we would have like a conference room.

And I would be standing on the conference table using that as my piano and we'd be working through the choreography until like 2 in the morning.

Yeah.

And I'm like, Prince, I've got to work in the morning, so I've got to go.