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Misty Copeland dances her way into history
By Crystal McCrary
Photography By Matthew Doyle
When Kevin McKenzie, artistic director of the American Ballet Theatre Company (ABT), called Misty Copeland into his office in August last year and told her she had been promoted to soloist, she did not respond with the outpouring of tears she had always envisioned. “I was in shock,” says the prodigy from San Pedro, Calif. “It wasn’t until I spoke to Susan that I cried. She asked me if I knew what this meant for generations of African-Americans to come.”
The Susan she is referring to is her sponsor: ABT Vice Chair of the Board of Governing Trustees and self-professed ballet groupie Susan Fales-Hill, who gets emotional when talking about Copeland, whom she considers a second daughter.
“When Misty became a soloist, the heavens opened,” Fales-Hill effuses over lunch, rather resembling a ballerina herself. “It was enormous. It was almost as big as Barack Obama getting the Democratic presidential nomination—almost. It’s knowing that the world has changed, that fairness exists, and that we are learning to look beyond superficial differences.”
An author and television writer/producer (A Different World, The Cosby Show), Fales-Hill spent her childhood living in New York and Europe with her parents. (As a result, she speaks four languages.) Her father, Timothy Fales, a member of a prominent New England family, and her mother, Josephine Premice, an accomplished Broadway dancer who performed at Carnegie Hall in 1943 at the age of 17, were one of the most dazzling and dynamic couples of their time. Fales-Hill grew up surrounded by dance icons like Debbie Allen, Janet Collins, and Arthur Mitchell.
“I’ve always loved all forms of dance, but I gravitated to ballet,” says Fales-Hill. “The striving toward excellence is almost spiritual to me.” In Copeland, whom she met at an ABT gala three years ago, Fales-Hill found not only an extraordinarily poised young woman, but “a rare talent, the sort who comes around only every 10 years or so.” In Fales-Hill, Copeland found an advocate and a mentor. “When Susan came into my life, I was having a hard time, not sure if I would make it past the corps to soloist,” Copeland explains. “You don’t get a lot of feedback, and they don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
As the only African-American in ABT, Copeland had moments of feeling isolated and often felt that she didn’t belong. “Susan helped get me back on track. She believed in me,” Copeland says one evening, looking fresh and dewy after an all-day rehearsal at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, far away from the local Boys & Girls Club where she used to go for free ballet classes wearing sweat socks and T-shirts.
By all accounts, Copeland demonstrated a natural talent from the age of 13, when she astounded her first ballet instructor by intuitively knowing how to hold her head and where to place her chin. Another early teacher, Diane Lauridsen, who taught Copeland when she was a dance student in California, has said, “As a dancer [Misty] was kissed by God.”
Innate abilities and toe shoes firmly in hand, Copeland, then 16, came to New York in September 2000 to join ABT’s Studio Company. By April she was a member of the corps de ballet. Desmond Richardson, one of the few African-Americans to ever become a principal with ABT (meaning he has danced almost all of the leading parts, and roles have been created for him), describes Copeland as, “technically concise, detailed, and elegant,” he says. “When I witness her perform, I am instantly attracted to her spirit, which she makes accessible to all of her viewers.” Fales-Hill agrees: “Misty has always had an added verve—a magic that cannot be taught or learned—and a remarkable ability to communicate a freedom within the strictures of ballet.”
Despite Copeland’s long, hard-earned journey to soloist, Fales-Hill has faith in the process and believes all Copeland’s opportunities have come to her at the right time. Still, the ABT trustee believes the company has a responsibility to be inclusive, which, she says, it is committed to being in part through its “training ladder” program, holding auditions at schools around the country where thousands of young people have shown up.
“The ABT is aggressively recruiting African-American dancers, but this program is not about quotas or affirmative action,” Fales-Hill clarifies. “Its focus is to actively search for the best dancers” and prepare them for ABT II, the junior company. After 14 seasons in existence, ABT II (considered a feeder for the primary ballet troupe) has two African-American dancers.
Fales-Hill firmly believes that in 2008, “It should not be the case that if a black dancer wants to perform Swan Lake that her only choice is to do so for a black company. Ballet is a universal art form that can be appreciated on the most visceral level like a piece of music. In order for ballet to survive, it must be open to everyone—people want to see a piece of themselves.” U
For more information about ABT, including its complete tour schedule, log on to abt.org.
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