Misty Copeland on ballet, racism, and her historic career | BBC News

Misty Copeland on ballet, racism, and her historic career | BBC News

Hi I’m caty thank you so oh my God I’m so happy does everybody who meets you who used to do ballet stand and automatically in first position is like a giveway and so you have so I have and I’ve been doing it you know what’s weird preparing for I find myself all day

Standing in first position again it’s been so many years stand up straight makes you stand up straight it’s so good for you I know I thank you for doing this I’m so thrilled I’m so thrilled so much I actually when I was about 13 I applied to the Royal Ballet school in

London and I didn’t get in which was just as well cuz I’d have been way in the backstage of the quarter ballet kind of ideally out of the set um but I wanted to meet you for so long so that’s great so when you come onto a stage

Misty having not danced since 2019 how are we feeling how’s your body doing um I mean it’s like different air up here you know like I say yeah it’s it’s like this um very Sacred Space to be in um it’s magic you know what we get to do

Up here one of my favorite things to do is to be on the stage before the the you know they let the the house they open the house they let the audience in um I always am on the stage by myself it’s a different very different feeling than

Being in a studio the mirrors you know it’s it’s a completely different depth that you have to get used to it Chang is your center of gravity your balance everything so it’s something that I always do um is just to kind of be out here and breath the air Val you

Listening to the music no no I know it in my head enough that I could even just like um just go through the movement and and I have like the Rhythm and everything in my in my body um no I never like put on any music or I just am

There I like to walk through you know certain parts of the ballet can I see something can you do oh my gosh I’m like I don’t even you could do a PA for me and I would be I mean in my heels I don’t even know what I would do there’s like the

Firebird movement that in still do okay when I get back into my ballet classes which I am going to do CU I’ve looked them up now which feels scary for me after so many years obviously my body can’t do what it could do when it was 13

14 15 but you and it shouldn’t you know it should and it shouldn’t and it’s how are you coping with that how are you coping with a body that is 40 you’ve had a child it’s not you’re not is your body how is your body’s relationship with

Ballet it’s not even to me about it’s more about like the injuries that I’ve had and kind of dealing with that um I feel good having had a baby um you know I’m in the gym I’m doing pilat IES and things like that do you still have the

Same amazing reach it’s I would say so it’s been a while I it’s it’s been really inconsistent in terms of like what I’ve been doing with ballet um and that’s because of uh an injury I had to my shin that I’m still managing it will never be the same I I recently had

Another operation on it to relieve some of the pressure and it didn’t do anything um so that’s that’s really the biggest pattle that I’m that I’m facing not so much my age or you know baby um because I feel like we’re ever evolving as artists as

People as women and so it’s like you kind of have to just move and adjust with that but when you’re dealing with pain that’s a whole other story so that’s kind of where I’m so you it’s so you’re going to give your body a bit of

Grace as it gets older yes and forgive it for not being Misty at 20 yes and that’s how it’s been my whole career you know that you’re never going to go back to that person your body’s never going to be you know you have to just

Continue to let it grow and and change is it hard to accept that is it hard to think that one day you won’t be dancing the way you have being ballet has been in your life for 27 years and is it a little scary to think that

There’s going to be a post performance Misty not at all I mean I already feel like I’m kind of in this place where it feels really natural I haven’t haven’t been on stage in about 3 years I know I’ll be back on the stage at some point

And it may look very different from what it’s been throughout my professional career but that feels so healthy and normal to me I have so many things in my life that um kind of fulfill what ballet has been and ballet is still in that you know again it’s it’s the work I’m doing

Through my Foundation it’s these incredible projects I’m creating with my production company um it’s having a son it’s all of these things so to me this feels like a really Natural Evolution um that I’m just kind of going with the flow you’re so healthy I I don’t know you know I feel

Like um towards the end of beginning of the pandemic like right before I had a back injury and I think I had just been really overworked you know it had been 20 years of working nonstop you know I think think about vacations where I was still you

Know taking ballet class every day and I had my point shoes no matter where I was in the world my poor husband would find a studio or a gym and we’d drive an hour so I feel like I’m just at a place now where I’m so content and I’m so proud of

The career that I’ve had and I know that there will be more performances um and it just feels right you know you know I I let’s take a seat you I remember Somewhere listening to something you said and you said about how when you were young your childhood was chaotic and you

Lived in motels your mother had Partners who were sometimes abusive there was a lot of poverty there was a lot of moving did ballet when you finally found it at the age of 13 give you some sense of of what of of control h over your body of something that you had

You know I think it was it was more than the control over my body I think it was control over situation was control over my life in some way um it was consistency it was stability it was an escape a beautiful artistic expression Escape um all of those things were

Things I don’t think I realized I needed or I was craving I was craving a discipline I you know to have that kind of structure um and ballet was just perfect in every way to fill all of those needs all of those voids um in my life to be able to

Think about you know sometimes not knowing whether we going to pick up and leave in the morning what we were going to eat for dinner that night and to know that I was going to go to ballet class the next day at 3:00 and do PLA and

Tandu and Dees and fondu it was going to be the same order like there was something so comforting it made me feel so safe um about that how quickly did you know how good you were I don’t know that I ever really knew how good I was

Um or believed I was just doing something that I loved um I was doing something where I felt uh I was being supported and nurtured which I’d never felt um I mean from the time I started my teacher was telling me I was a prodigy um I was receiving full

Scholarships when I was at audition for summer intensive programs so there were a lot of schools that wanted me but in my mind you know I knew that I was Far Behind the other students and that I had a lot of catching up to do but I knew

That I was a fighter and I knew that this was something that I wanted to do so I was going to work as hard as I possibly could to to catch up and get to where um I needed to be and wanted to be you came to New York from California and

I wonder how much of a shock it was to get to the American Ballet Theater and look around and see that you were the only black dancer in you you must have known ballet was white very white did you know it was that white that you

Would come here and be the only one I’m not sure how aware I was uh my teacher Cindy Bradley is an incredible woman and she was very conscious of the fact that I’m a black woman that I was a black girl and that I needed to be as focused

On on getting the training that I needed to get in order to get to where we wanted me to go which was to dance professionally for American Ballet Theater or another professional company when I moved to New York City it definitely was a shock I don’t think

That um I was prepared enough in knowing how to navigate you know the this space um where I would get support from because it’s not something that’s really built in um to the professional uh surroundings and atmosphere in a ballet company they expect you to come in and be an adult

And at 17 years old and someone who was very you know kind of guarded and and isolated I was not at all prepared um to take on what it meant to be the only in in the company you’re also in Bal kind of uniquely all expected to be identical

I mean that’s the whole thing about what has been over centuries the quarter ballet looked exactly the same they didn’t looked the same they had the same body they had the same outfit they had the same skin color they moved identically and that was was kind of the

Essence of balet right and in a way of all the many disruptive things you’ve done I feel it’s disrupting that notion of what ballet had to be the centuries it was like that then you came along we said no I think there are so many things that I think about in terms of

Disrupting the the field and um and um you know provoking the conversation um to be really intentional about the lack of diversity um but you’re right but I have to say that I’m not the first to do it there have been so many black dancers that have um that have come into

Professional ballet companies and been the only or been one of maybe two um and it hasn’t always been accepted um you know for the most part A lot of the the the black dancers that have been taken into you know Elite professional companies have lighter skin or are

Biracial because they can more easily fit in they can pancake their skin to be a lighter color to fit in with the rest of the C of ballet um harder if you had darker skin would you Bey absolutely it would be harder I mean there are so many

Dancers that have that have the talent this is not an issue of not being able to find talented black and brown dancers this is an issue of not um having the support not having the access or opportunity and not being not being seen as equal all the girls put on powder but

You’re being asked to put on the same color powder pancake white um and and then that’s when I start to think like well what’s going on here do they want me to look like myself or do um do they want me to be an individual and still be

Able to take on this character um but as myself in my brown skin and that’s who I am like I said it’s a lot easier for a lighter skin um black one woman I want to say in particular woman because it’s a different Journey for black men um to

To kind of blend in with the with the company and then that’s another battle that we have to face you know whether or not we want to um color our skin VI said hold on why am I putting on white makeup yeah I mean um it it was a tough

Conversation to have and even tough to um absorb like what that really means and how it really is making me feel internal um and it’s and it’s hard because it’s kind of mixed in with this idea of well within these certain ballets you think of Swan Lake or jaizelle or even laad

Dare and you’re supposed to be otherworldly or you’re supposed to um be a fairy or a creature not be alive and so they say that you need to make your skin matte or not shiny and so it took me a couple of years to feel confident enough and comfortable enough to go and

And have agency over myself and um and express what it was I was feeling with my artistic director and with the artistic staff how much has changed Misty just like even in the conversation in the United States I mean we’ve had so much other people me too George Floyd

Even Co I mean how much is how much is the conversation different today than how it would have been even 5 years ago it was mindblowing to me to see the shift happen during covid and you know with the uprise of black lives matter and the murder of George Floyd um you

Know it was something that I knew I would always be fighting for to push this conversation to to see real change happen and um but I never imagined it would happen so quickly um there’s still so much that needs to be done ballet becomes more um more open to diversity

Not just of color of somebody’s skin but also their even their body type we have tons of ballet dancers with eating disorders they starve themselves they they just look unhealthily thin and then I imagine you come along you were told this your body was what was it told

You’re not traditional something yeah I mean there’s so much deeper um kind of underlying meaning behind the things I was told because when people meet me you know they’re like wow you’re really small and you’re very petite and you’re lean and so you know I’ve had to think a lot

About why those things are being said to me or even look at the bodies next to me of of the dancers who are not black and say um do we look that different um I mean I was told I was too muscular I was too short my breasts are too big um and

To me that’s all code for your skin is too dark your skin is too Brown um but it is possible this is an art form and it’s subjective and we’re we’re be you know it’s a creative um environment where you know it’s not about to me it’s

Not about what the packages it’s how you make people feel it’s the interpretation it’s how you deliver the performance the the the character and that can be done in a variety of of bodies people wherever they come from I’m the characters themselves aren’t real you

Know that’s a big part of it too I mean there of course there there needs to be an evolution and I think of a lot of the stories that were telling in ballet um that you know were created centuries ago um that no longer reflect Society they don’t reflect what people uh experience

Today a lot of them are really sexist really racist so it’s something that we’re conscious of um more so in America than we are in other countries there are still ballets that are being performed in blackface in Russia um you got into a bit of a spat yes

Yeah I mean I think that it’s so necessary to to speak up that um you know we’re no longer living in these times where uh there’s no access to seeing what they’re doing at the bullo or the marinski or whatever company the Royal Ballet you go on YouTube you

Whatever it is and you have access to seeing all of this so it’s not like they’re isolated in a place where they feel people won’t be offended who’s coming to see them um that’s kind of their reasoning behind it well we’re not America we don’t have the history of

Slavery that you do and we don’t think that people will be offended because this is just what we’ve always done and that’s not the case so many people are watching and the world you know we have so much access to all of this and I just

Think that it’s time that we um we can hold on to the tradition and and some of these ballets that of course you you know people uh still want to see but we have to continue to evolve and it has to represent more than just one type of

Person yeah that’s a that’s a great way of putting it okay I I don’t want to keep you seated in check I have Mr kand on stage no and I feel like I’m I’m you know wasting my opportunity here I have something to show okay I got to show you

This I’m very excited so we have to move all of the cameras over okay we’re going to sit here and tell you something we’re going to sit here if I can actually get down here you know an 8-year-old your but okay so seems from your

My gosh and I want your reaction to the so oh this Photograph so this oh you know this one yes I’m sure you know all of the this one I love how how long did it take you to get on points um I think it was two months so this was the very

Months yeah this is the very first time I ever put on a point sh and stood on point wow um yeah it’s pretty wild yeah I mean I I was 13 I you know had I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone putting point shees on after two months

Okay this we were talking about this was here at Lincoln Center right yes yes this is the firebird um it’s probably in that first performance at Lincoln Center um there’s so many mixed feelings around this image because like you were saying earlier what that night represented for you know black and brown

Community to come out and support we’ve never seen that many fill the fill the house of of of the Metropolitan Opera House I remember people sending me photographs of the line that was wrapped around and outside of of the fountain that were just black people it was like

Are they going to church like what’s happening because that’s what you you know you don’t typically see that many black people going into linoln Center um and so for what it represents there’s so many happy memories but then I also had six stress fractures in my tibia um and

Pulled out of the season the next day the next day and ended up having a plate screwed into my tibia so you basically did that once were you in agony the whole yes yeah I I mean once you go on stage so much as you know the adrenaline

And everything much forgotten yes it’s a great painkiller but then as soon as you know all of that subsides and and um I remember taking the subway home that night and I and it hurt just to stand um and you knew you couldn’t there’s no way

I knew that that was it mhm how do you deal with disappointments like that oh you for me I I tend to not go inside into this dark place it’s um I try and find ways to do whatever I can um that’s in my control um and so during that time I

Found a teacher that would work with me doing floor bar movement and exercises so I wasn’t standing but I was still continuing to keep my muscles um strong and and form um I just kept working on things that I had control over and um I never have followed this path that

Anyone else has so I always thought there’s still hope even at 29 years old when I got injured that I could be a principal dancer and I just kind of kept that in in my life here you were a soloist still a soloist another way you’ve been influential by the way okay it’s

Good it’s this must felt good that was unbelievably surreal I remember being um I was on my way to rehearsal from the emper west side I was heading downtown and I remember my manager Gilda calling me and telling me that I was going to be

One of the covers and I was just I like I couldn’t I was like no like not until I see it is it really real um that that was an unbelievable time I had been promoted to principal dancer and it just was kind of a whirlwind but even seeing

Something like this it took me years to really accept that that I had been promoted um and that this history had you know taken place U you know ABT 75 year history kind of breaking that barrier being the first black woman why do you think you’re influential never been asked that before

Um you know I I think that because I I look at myself in my career as not me you know it’s it’s what I represent it’s all of the people that have gotten me to this place that I stand on the shoulders of um it’s giving them voice it’s giving

A voice to the voiceless to so many who um haven’t been given the same opportunities as me um that it’s about giving back to um you know to those who um need guidance and need support you know um I just think of my life and my career is this very holistic thing and

That it’s a give and take um and that it’s not just about me it’s so much bigger bigger than me Mist it’s been wonderful thank you so much thank you so much thank you thank You m

The BBC’s Katty Kay travels to New York City to meet Misty Copeland, the iconic ballerina who became the first African-American woman to achieve the role of Principal Dancer at the American Ballet Theatre.

They spoke on stage at Lincoln Center about Copeland’s status as a trailblazer, how she copes with injuries and setbacks, racism, and what she hopes to achieve in the next phase of her career.

You’re watching Influential with Katty Kay.

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