{"id":64084,"date":"2023-01-22T17:28:12","date_gmt":"2023-01-22T17:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=64084"},"modified":"2023-01-23T03:33:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T03:33:12","slug":"it-chips-away-at-you-misty-copeland-on-the-whiteness-of-ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64084","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;It chips away at you&#8217;: Misty Copeland on the whiteness of ballet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/11\/14\/1136026492\/misty-copeland-ballet-raven-wilkinson-wind-at-my-back\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>&#8216;It chips away at you&#8217;: Misty Copeland on the whiteness of ballet<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/programs\/fresh-air\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fresh Air<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Public Radio<\/a><br \/>\n2022-11-14<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/2100593\/terry-gross\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Terry Gross<\/strong><\/a>, Host<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/player\/embed\/1136026492\/1136569824\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/11\/14\/1136026492\/misty-copeland-ballet-raven-wilkinson-wind-at-my-back\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; width: 80%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2022\/11\/14\/photo-by-masterclass-mistycopeland_custom-afaec030cb40bfb8481180239604c4617fd0b03f-s1800-c85.webp\" \/><\/a><figcaption style=\"font-size: x-small; display: block; width: 80%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Misty_Copeland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Misty Copeland<\/a> has been a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Principal_dancer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">principal ballerina<\/a> with the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Ballet_Theatre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">American Ballet Theatre<\/a> since 2015. She took a break from performing due to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/COVID-19_pandemic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">COVID-19<\/a> and the birth of her son in spring 2022, but she hopes to be back on stage in 2023.<br \/>\n<em>Drew Gurian\/MasterClass<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At first, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Misty_Copeland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Misty Copeland<\/a> thought the pain she was experiencing was <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shin_splints\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shin splits<\/a>. It was 2012, and, after 12 years with the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Ballet_Theatre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">American Ballet Theatre<\/a>, Copeland, one of the few Black dancers in the company, had finally landed her first leading role in a classical work.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I knew how critical this moment was for my career,&#8221; she says. &#8220;If I had gone to the artistic staff or the physical therapists and said, &#8216;I&#8217;m in a lot of pain,&#8217; they would have removed me from the rehearsals. And I would not have been able to perform. And I knew that had that happened, I wouldn&#8217;t be given the opportunity again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So she pushed on, dancing the principal role in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Firebird\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Firebird<\/em><\/a>, despite the fact that the pain was becoming increasingly severe. Finally, toward the end of the company&#8217;s season, Copeland was diagnosed with six stress fractures in her <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tibia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tibia<\/a> \u2014 three of which were classified as &#8220;dreaded black line&#8221; fractures, meaning that there were almost full breaks through the bone.<\/p>\n<p>When the first surgeon warned her that she might never dance again, Copeland was devastated. &#8220;It was just like my whole world came crashing down,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I felt mostly like I was letting down the Black community.&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/11\/14\/1136026492\/misty-copeland-ballet-raven-wilkinson-wind-at-my-back\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. Download the story (00:42:00) <a href=\"https:\/\/ondemand.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/fa\/2022\/11\/20221114_fa_01.mp3?orgId=427869011&amp;topicId=1145&amp;d=2531&amp;p=13&amp;story=1136026492&amp;dl=1&amp;sc=siteplayer&amp;size=40511992&amp;dl=1&amp;aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s interesting is when I started ballet at 13 years old, I was told I had everything that it took to be a ballet dancer, physically, artistically. So that&#8217;s why there&#8217;s kind of this interesting dichotomy when I think about Black women specifically in ballet and the language that&#8217;s being used in telling us that we are wrong for ballet. Again, I had the ideal body when I joined American Ballet Theater. Of course, I went through puberty \u2014 and like a lot of dancers who become professionals between the ages of 16 and 18 &#8230; my body did change. But once I became a professional, that&#8217;s when people started to really see me as a Black woman in a company where there weren&#8217;t any. And that&#8217;s when the language started to change around me fitting in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,2850,8,20,25],"tags":[20353,19921,12552,19922,2309,2833,15060],"class_list":["post-64084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-audio","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-american-ballet-theatre","tag-ballet","tag-fresh-air","tag-misty-copeland","tag-national-public-radio","tag-npr","tag-terry-gross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64084"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64103,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64084\/revisions\/64103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}