Weekend Read: Misty Copeland, An Unlikely Ballerina

By Carla Murphy Sep 19, 2014

Settle in this weekend and meet artist, athlete and ballerina Misty Copeland in this gorgeous New Yorker profile by Rivka Galchen. 

Copeland’s artistic and commercial successes make us all feel good–about ballet, about America–and yet that feeling is somewhat tendentious. It is impossible to distill the current role of race in ballet (or in any field) from one woman’s career. Copeland’s race makes her immediately distinctive in the ballet world, and this has undoubtedly helped her commercial career, but murmurings, on some online dance-discussion threads, that she has been excessively promoted within A.B.T. because of her race overlook not just her virtuosity but also the many years in which she wasn’t a soloist, or even a lead dancer.

(h/t The New Yorker)