This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 Life Without Limits issue of Showstopper Magazine.
When you think of icons of the dance world, who comes to mind? If Misty Copeland is among the dancers pirouetting through your hed, we wouldn’t be surprised. A dancer, a boundary breaker, and a role model, Misty takes the expectations of dance beyond lifestyle or passion or career.
One Step at a Time
Having experienced a variety of limits in life and her career, Misty is a problem solver who doesn’t let adversity get in the way of her goals. “Solving problems is such a big part of life,” Misty told us, “and every day we have to do this in big and small ways. I approach everything one step at a time. Here is my goal, then work backwards to find solutions to reach that goal.”
Misty grew up in San Pedro, California where she faced housing insecurity and financial instability from a young age. Finding dance as a teenager is part of how Misty found an outlet for expressing herself. Last year, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times exploring her work in the dance community, Misty described ballet as “an environment where I felt seen and heard.” It was this journey that transformed her from the shy 13-year-old with the nickname “Mouse” to the dancer who dedicates her time and art to helping others find space to express themselves today.
While she is best known for becoming American Ballet Theatre’s (ABT) first African American female principal dancer, Misty has accumulated a lot of titles since taking that coveted role in 2015, including writer and executive producer. In all of her projects, she hopes to inspire others to see that big things are possible whether she’s sharing her journey to the lead role in Firebird in a children’s book or playing a part in the magic of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. “Freedom of expression defines my art,” Misty said. “My desire to bring dance to more communities that wouldn’t otherwise have access to dance and music keeps me inspired and motivated in my work and creative space.”
Flower Misty’s New Short Film
Misty Copeland’s new production company Life in Motion released its first short film, Flower, in September 2023. The 28-minute film follows three unhoused dancers in an RV encampment in West Oakland, California and aims to show people the realities of housing and food insecurity through dance.
“Flower is a bridge for all things I’ve worked for throughout my career and have come together in this film. It brings access to ballet and dance on the screen and tells a relevant story of today that resonates with so many Americans. Getting it to the masses in an affordable way, wetting their appetite so that there is interest to them come to a theater and support the art form but also showing that the stories we tell through this art can be relatable, can represent you and your community. This, to me, is the future of ballet.”
Leading and Giving Back
For Misty, overcoming limits is all about community. Role models and teachers that believe in you, like Misty found in icons like her mentor Raven Wilkinson, and the people you see succeeding at your goals, like all of the dancers who look up to Misty today, can be your inspiration to set big goals. “Being a role model to me means being empathetic, understanding, and recognizing that you are a part of something bigger than yourself.” Misty’s success is not just her success. It’s success for the dancers that follow in her footsteps and continue to break boundaries and accomplish new things in art and dance after her.
Author of six books, including two children’s books and her own memoir, in 2022 Misty released The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson. In this memoir of her relationship with the late ballerina, Misty shares some of the most valuable lessons she learned under Raven’s care and expertise. “Raven led me to see and understand that my career is connected to so many in the past and future of ballet,” Misty said of the importance of her relationship with Raven and of having a mentor like her. “The career and life lessons I learned from her are so invaluable that I thought it would be amazing to share—as well as her story needing to be told again and again. Her mentorship has shown me how important it is for me to lead and give back.”
In 2021, Misty founded The Misty Copeland Foundation with the mission to bring ballet to underserved communities and increase diversity in dance. AS someone proud of overcoming “Being told again and again that I wasn’t right for ballet,” Misty sees the ways that afterschool programs can leave students, especially people of color, out due to a variety of reasons from money to transportation. She wants to see those students included and wants to create the programs and conversations that will allow that to happen.
This conversation is part of the drive behind another of Misty’s recent projects, the documentary Lift, for which Misty served as Executive Producer and Principal Advisor. “[Artisitc Director of New York Theatre Ballet] Steven Melendez and I have a lot in common and share goals for what we see for the future of ballet. When he told me about this project, I felt like it was my story, his story, and so many others,” she said of the project. “I grew up with housing insecurity for the majority of my childhood and was introduced to ballet through a community program. It saved my life. To be able to highlight how dance is more than a technique or an art but can serve as a means, tools to be more than your circumstances, to bring light and beauty to one’s life, to give you life skills.”
Through projects like The Misty Copeland Foundation, Misty works to actively generate community support in creative spaces. She shared that the projects help others live without limits because they “provide access, opportunity, support, investment, encouragement, fun, and love!” For Misty, the only boundary that she sees as a real roadblock is injury. “Otherwise anything is possible.”
Limitless Misty
We love to see dancers chase their dreams and meet incredible career goals or accomplish unimaginable feats on stage. Misty Copeland has done those things many times, from dancing en pointe within three months of her first dance class to breaking the color barrier in one of the most prestigious companies in the world, but Misty has never made it her mission to only overcome her own limits. She wants to highlight the things that stand in the way of others and help break them for anyone that follows her whether they dance to achieve big things or simply to express themselves for a moment.
