Misty Copeland on Being Black in Ballet: 'People Are Narrow Minded'
The amazing Misty Copeland recently went on NPR Morning Edition, where she discussed her experiences being the American Ballet Theatre’s first black soloist in two decades.
Professional ballet has a terrible lack of diversity. A 2012 Guardian article pointed out that there were no black dancers in Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet — a company with over 200 members — and, one year later, the Moscow Times ran an infuriating article about the discrimination faced by Precious Adams, one of the few black dancers to attend the academy. It’s not just Russia, of course: there are very few black dancers at prominent British and American companies as well. As Stacia L. Brown argues at the Washington Post, this is particularly troubling because “ballerinas have long been avatars of possibility for little girls.” She adds, “When black and brown girls don’t see black ballerinas in the world’s most prestigious troupes, the absence intimates diminished possibility.”