-
The birth of Misty Copeland
Misty Danielle Copeland born September 10, 1982 born in Kansas city, Missouri, United States (now 34) -
Prodigy
Misty was a very shy kid blending in the background within her poor family of many brothers and sister never seeking attention. When she started ballet she started dancing en pointe after 3 months of training. Copeland was considered a prodigy despite not starting ballet until age 13. -
Rise to stardom
In 1997, Copeland won the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Award as the best dancer in Southern California. And later went on tour with the ABT in China. And in 2001 officially became a member of the corps de ballet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saMB0Mr1qdE -
Struggles
Eight months after joining the company she was sidelined for nearly a year by a lumber stress factor. when she joined the company she weighed 108 pounds and 5 feet 2 inches. By age 19 puberty has been delayed a situation common to ballet dancers. Copeland recalled that one month she gained 10 pounds and her small breasts swelled up to double D-cup size. Her leotards had to be altered to cover her breasts and she hated the sign she was different. -
Struggles part 2
Management noticed and called her down to talk about her body. The professional pressure to loose weight created body image struggles and a binge eating disorder. Copeland says that, over the next year, new friendships outside of ABT, including with Victoria Rowell and her boyfriend, Olu Evans, helped her to regain her confidence. Soon she began to dance with confidence and joy and the ABT staff began to give her positive feedback. -
Isolation
During her years in the corps, as the only black woman at the company, Copeland also felt the burden of her ethnicity in many ways and contemplated her career choices. Noticing her isolation and self-doubt were standing in the way of her talent, ABT's artistic director, Kevin McKenzie, asks writer and arts figure Susan Fales-Hill then vice chair of ABT's board of Directors, to mentor Misty. Fales-Hill introduced Misty to black women who blazed trails who encouraged Copeland. -
Rise to stardom part 2
In 2008, Misty was honored with the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts, a two-year fellowship awarded to young artists who exhibit extraordinary talent providing them additional resources in order to obtain their full potential. -
Firebird
Misty was the first African American woman to perform "the firebird". And in December 2014 Misty performed "Clara" the lead role in the nutcracker. In the fall of 2014 she made history as the first black woman to perform the lead role of "Odette/Odile" in American Ballet Theater's Swan Lake during the companies tour in Australia. -
Fractures
Due to six stress fractures in her tibia, she was sidelined in October after her surgery. Every doctor she went to said her dancing career is over, except for one who has worked with major athletes and was positive she would dance again. One decision to treat it was to take a rod from her knee all the way down to her ankle inside the bone but 20% of people have knee pain and shes a jumper so you try not to mess with that at all. -
Fractures part 2
He made an incision in the front and in that incision found the fractures and drilled across them with a needle to stimulate the bleeding and packed the bone marrow cells in there and put the plate in there. Misty was sidelined for seven months after her October surgery. -
Fractures part 3
With all the time missed because of recovery she was thought to never be able to catch up again to the other dancers. Dancers who are injured may loose opportunities that they once had, but due to injury and the time they take to recover from it they fall beck and other dancers steal those opportunities they once had. And that dancer may never have that opportunity again. -
Comeback
Upon her return to stage, she danced the Queen of the Dryads in Don Quixote in May 2013. Nelson George began filming a documentary leverage to present the chance her comeback. -
Promotion
On June 30, 2015 Misty Copeland became the fist African American dancer to be promoted to principal ballerina in ABT's 75-year history. Her achievement was groundbreaking, as there has been very few African American principal ballerinas in major dance companies. -
Why I Identify with her.
I identify with her because of our love of dance and the art form. And our hair color is pretty similar. I want to have dance as my career when I get older. She is my role model and who I idolize.
