Misty Copeland, the First African-American Principal Ballerina

Good day everyone, how are you today? I have not written for a long time because I have been busy working on successfully creating my natural beauty product line (which I have successfully formulated and will discuss in another blog post).
However, the desire to encourage people to live beyond their present situation has brought me back to blogging. This time, I wrote about Misty Danielle Copeland, the first African-American performer, who was appointed as a principal dancer for American Ballet Theatre (typically considered the best company for classical ballet in America) in June, 2015.

The reason I decided to write about her is because she has surmounted different hurdles in life to get to where she is today. Oftentimes, we have challenges and life hardly goes the way we want it. But it is our duty to make the best of the available opportunities or challenges we have.
Kindly read about this wonderful, multi-talented African-American ballet dancer and get inspired to do that which you think is impossible.

Background

Misty Copeland was born September 10, 1982 in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A. She and her siblings grew up with a single mother, whose several failed marriages resulted in financial instability. This led to Misty, her and her five siblings living in a two-room motel suite, in San Pedro.

Dancing Talent

Misty, a new balerina at age 13

As a young child, Misty moved with her family from Kansas City to San Pedro, California, where she had her first formal encounter with dance. Her middle school team’s coach noticed her talent and recommended that she attended ballet classes taught by Cynthia Bradley at the local Boys & Girls Club. This marks the beginning of her ballet studies at the age of 13, which is too late to start learning ballet because many professional ballet dancers begin their training around the age of three.

Misty at age 14, perfecting her pointe

Over time, Misty’s natural ability was quickly recognized by Cynthia, who made Misty move in with her, her husband and their young son to help her focus more on ballet. She did this when Misty’s family moved to a one-room motel.

Ballet Career and Awards

In 1998, at age 15, Misty won first prize in the ballet category of the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards. That summer, she was accepted with a full scholarship into the intensive summer program at the San Francisco Ballet.
In 2000, she won another full scholarship, to the ABT’s intensive summer program. That year, she was also named the ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar. At the end of that summer, she was invited to join the ABT studio company, a selective program for young dancers still in training. Soon after, she became a member of the ABT’s corps de ballet in 2001, as the only African American woman in a group of 80 dancers.
In 2007 she became the company’s first African American female soloist in two decades. Some of Misty’s notable performances include the title role in The Firebird (2012), Gulnare in Le Corsaire (2013), Swanilda in Coppélia (2014), and the dual lead role, Odette/Odile, in Swan Lake (2014).

More Awards

In 2008, Misty received the 2008 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts and was named National Youth of the Year Ambassador for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 2013. In 2014, President Obama appointed her to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
In addition, she won the 2014 Dance Magazine Award and was recently named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2015, a rare feat for someone from the dance world.
On June 30, 2015, Misty became the first African-American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in ABT's 75-year history. Thus, Misty is considered a prodigy because she rose to stardom despite not starting ballet until the age of 13.

Ballet Challenges

In the ballet world, racism and discrimination continued and throughout most of the 20th century, African-Americans were largely barred from quality training and professional careers.
Though Misty is the first African-American ballerina to attain the rank of principal dancer with the historically white A.B.T., she is not the first African-American professional ballerina. In fact, there have been African-American ballerinas such as Janet Collins, who danced with the Metropolitan Opera House in the early 1950s; Raven Wilkinson, who joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1955; Nora Kimball, one of the first African-American soloists (a rank below principal) with A.B.T.; and the legendary Virginia Johnson of the Dance Theater of Harlem.
As regards Raven Wilkinson, Ballet Russe reportedly told her and her family that they were not to let the public know that she was actually black. So onstage, she was often required to “white up,” masking her in pale pancake makeup.
Also, many black ballet dancers, including Wilkinson, were encouraged to concentrate on “African dance,” or maybe modern dance or musical theatre even if they had spent years training in classical ballet. However, Misty anomalously broke that standard because her presence challenges the traditional conventions of ballet.

Endorsements

Misty has had endorsements with companies such as Coach (leather accessories) and Under Armour (athletic wear). In addition to her dance career, she has endorsed products and companies such as T-Mobile, Dr Pepper and Under Armour. Picture)
Thus, Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci wrote in Time that Copeland's story was one "of someone who followed her dreams and refused to give up. She added that "It doesn't matter where you're from. If you have the passion like Misty, you can be the best at what you do."

Sources

http://time.com
https://en.wikipedia.org
http://edition.cnn.com
http://www.britannica.com
http://www.abt.org
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.okayplayer.com