They told her she didn’t have the body for ballet. Breaking boundaries! She’s bad as fuck too.
“In a break with ballet tradition, Ms. Copeland was unusually outspoken
about her ambition of becoming the first black woman to be named a
principal by Ballet Theater, one of the country’s most prestigious
companies, which is known for its international roster of stars and for
staging full-length classical story ballets. She wrote about her goals
and struggles in a memoir published last year, “Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina.”A
number of leading dance companies and schools, including Ballet
Theater, have begun new efforts to increase diversity in classical
ballet, but there is a long way to go. Jennifer Homans, the author of
“Apollo’s Angels,” a history of ballet, said that ballet had fallen far
behind other art forms, like theater, in that regard — making what she
called the “phenomenon” of Ms. Copeland all the more important.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main story“What
she has come to represent is so important in the dance world, and in
the ballet world in particular,” said Ms. Homans, who is the director of
the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University. “I think
it’s about time. But I don’t think it’s enough.”This history made Ms. Copeland’s chances for promotion a much-discussed topic
in the dance world, and put a rare public spotlight on Ballet Theater
as it weighed the kind of personnel decision that, in the rarefied world
of ballet, is seldom talked about openly. That race could still be such
an issue in 2015 — and that African-Americans could remain so rarely
seen in elite ballet companies — has been depressing to many dancegoers,
and has led to impassioned discussions in the dance world and beyond
about race, stereotypes and image.“
