DOCSLIB.ORG

Here's the Story of Coppelia

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Here's the Story of Coppelia >> Thank you so much for joining us today. We're just thrilled to have both Misty Copeland and Denene Millner here to discuss their new book that they are publishing and writing together. Both of them have written some very exciting books that we have in our libraries and in -- on our catalog. My name is Ariana Chauca Calita. [assumed spelling] I am the author of "The Young Person's guide to the Ballet." And as I mentioned, I work at the Tremont Library. So we're very excited. I'm under the impression you're going to be reading "Bunheads." Is that right? >> Yes, that's correct. I'm very excited to be sharing this one. >> Wonderful. Well, I'll let you get to it, if you want to maybe read a little bit for us before we start with our questions. That's wonderful. Thank you. >> Great. So "Bunheads" is a really, really special book for me. It's something that I planned on writing, I think, almost five years ago. And I wanted to give young people, as well as the ballet world, a real insight into what it is to grow up loving dance, grow up in an inviting environment. Which, that's what I experienced growing up as a 13-year-old coming into ballet, that it's not what you might often see depicted in Shaman India, which can be very negative. It doesn't always show the camaraderie and the friendships that are built, and just the beauty of the stories and the storytelling, and how rich that is for a young person to experience. So I'm just going to read a little bit, just to give our audience an idea of what "Bunheads" is about. "When Miss Bradley announced they'd be performing the ballet 'Coppelia' for the recital, everyone in Misty's class shouted excitedly, and gathered around to hear their teacher tell the story of Coppelia. Misty didn't know what Coppelia meant. And she was too shy to ask, especially since it was her first ballet class ever. So Misty took a spot on the floor, and before she knew it, she was completely entranced, as Miss Bradley told the tale." These are some of my favorite illustrations by Setor Fiadzigbey. Here's the story of Coppelia. "Once upon a time, an odd, old toymaker made a beautiful, life-sized doll named Coppelia to cure his lonely heart. The doll was so pretty, and looked so real, that a boy named Franz fell in love with Coppelia at first sight, even though he already told Swanilda he would marry her. Swanilda was furious when she caught Franz blowing kisses to Coppelia. But Franz ignored her anger. Later Franz sneaked into the toymaker's house to see Coppelia. But the toymaker caught him. When the toymaker realized that Franz was in love with his doll, he had an awful idea. Maybe he could use Franz's love to turn Coppelia into a real girl." I love just the way that Setor first of all made the little girl look so much like me, and that you see a brown girl with curly hair depicted in ballet. "Lucky for Franz, Swanilda had also sneaked into the toymaker's house out of curiosity. And she was still hidden inside. She overheard the toymaker's evil plan and decided to dress like Coppelia to confuse the old man. Once the toymaker believed that his doll had finally come to life, Franz escaped. After that, Franz realized what a fool he'd been. And he married Swanilda. The two lived happily ever after." If only life was actually that simple. "Misty loved how Swanilda never lost sight of her goal, or her real love. She knew she wanted to be Swanilda. 'In just a few days, we will decide what roles you will dance in the performance,' Miss Bradley said. Now, let's practice. First there was a developpe tendu front, with one leg lifted forward, the pointed foot gently touching the floor." You can see the tendu here, the young girls gathered around Miss Bradley. "Next was the rond de jambe to tendu front, with the leg stretched straight out to the front, making big circles round and round in the air with the toes. Then it got a bit harder with the pot au beret, moving from side to side, as one foot crossed over the other." I think this is my favorite picture, the rond de jambe, where you see the action of the leg making a circle. "They had such fun with the soutenu, as the young dancers twirled and spun in unison. Finally the lesson ended with simultaneous pot au berets, again and again. Misty picked up the step easily, following only a half second behind the rest of the class. 'Have you ever danced "Coppelia"?' Miss Bradley asked. Misty shook her head nervously, replying, 'I've never taken ballet before.' 'Well, you're very good,' Miss Bradley said. 'Come,' she called to Misty and Cat, a younger girl who was full of energy, 'you two, up front.' Misty could feel her heart pounding. Miss Bradley asked Cat to show Misty the dance of Coppelia. Coppelia sits in a chair on the balcony of the toymaker's house throughout the first act of the ballet. Cat held her arms in first position, then lifted her arms and turned her head like a robot, up and down, and side to side. She performed the moves beautifully. When it was Misty's turn, she imitated Cat from memory. 'You are both very gifted,' Miss Bradley said." And there's Cat and Misty. So that's just a short bit that I wanted to share. Again, just the way that I think the ballet terminology is shown in this book, you know, it's not kind of watering down what ballet is, but really educating children and teaching them the French terms, and then seeing the movement, and explaining a little bit about what those movements mean. >> I love the accessibility of it, right, that it's still -- it doesn't dumb things down. But it still invites them to see what each thing is, and trying it on their own. The book is so fun, because it shows inside how you lit up when you first started dancing, that you were in that class, and without necessarily having role models, just coming to it, and feeling it. Although it does sound like the class was -- it was the right fit, right? So out of curiosity, I was wondering, what were some of your role models growing up? I mean, you're a wonderful role models for so many of our children now. But who were some of your role models? I know you're friends with the famous ballerina Raven Wilkinson. So I don't know if that was someone you had looked up before, or how you got to know her. I thought that would be an interesting story for the kids to maybe hear. >> Yeah, you know, what's so interesting is that, growing up as a brown girl, as a biracial girl, as a black girl in Southern California, first of all, I had no introduction to what ballet and dance really were. I was discovered on a basketball court at my Boys and Girls Club. That's where I took my first ballet class when I was 13 years old. And it was Miss Bradley, Cynthia Bradley, who discovered me and brought me into her school. I, at that point, had no idea that there weren't -- There was no real history that had been documented of black and brown dancers in classical dance. So my teacher did a pretty good job of shielding me from, you know, the racism that existed in the ballet world and in dance culture at that elite level. And so I didn't really have any black dancers that I was aware of. I'd say that my mom was someone that was a role model for me, being a black woman, raising six children on her own. Miss Bradley -- Cynthia became a role model for me, someone who was so invested in her community. She was going to different public schools and community centers, and looking for more diverse students to be able to give them scholarships and bring them into her school. And I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't have the career I have, had she not gone to that Boys and Girls Club and literally plucked me from the bleachers and forced me to take a ballet class. And she knew the life that it could give me, whether or not I went on to become a professional. And one that -- I'm sure the kids listening would have no idea what I'm talking about, but before Raven -- because I didn't learn about who Raven was until I was in my late 20's was Mariah Carey. And I know that sounds so silly. But you know, with something that I don't think I realized until I was much older. But seeing someone who looked like me who was succeeding -- someone who was biracial who had this unbelievable gift, and was receiving, you know, the acknowledgement and the accolades that she deserved. And I think that there was just something that I connected to. And it was her music that I started creating movement to before I even discovered ballet.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Five Pioneering Black Ballerinas
    _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Five Pioneering Black Ballerinas: ‘We Have to Have a Voice’ These early Dance Theater of Harlem stars met weekly on Zoom — to survive the isolation of the pandemic and to reclaim their role in dance history. The 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy, from left: Marcia Sells, Sheila Rohan, Gayle McKinney-Griffith, Karlya Shelton-Benjamin and Lydia Abarca-Mitchell. By Karen Valby June 17, 2021 Last May, adrift in a suddenly untethered world, five former ballerinas came together to form the 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy. Every Tuesday afternoon, they logged onto Zoom from around the country to remember their time together performing with Dance Theater of Harlem, feeling that magical turn in early audiences from skepticism to awe. Life as a pioneer, life in a pandemic: They have been friends for over half a century, and have held each other up through far harder times than this last disorienting year. When people reached for all manners of comfort, something to give purpose or a shape to the days, these five women turned to their shared past. In their cozy, rambling weekly Zoom meetings, punctuated by peals of laughter and occasional tears, they revisited the fabulousness of their former lives. With the 2 background of George Floyd’s murder and a pandemic disproportionately affecting the Black community, the women set their sights on tackling another injustice. They wanted to reinscribe the struggles and feats of those early years at Dance Theater of Harlem into a cultural narrative that seems so often to cast Black excellence aside. “There’s been so much of African American history that’s been denied or pushed to the back,” said Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, 64, who first brought the idea of a legacy council to the other women.
    [Show full text]
  • Ballets Russes Press
    A ZEITGEIST FILMS RELEASE THEY CAME. THEY DANCED. OUR WORLD WAS NEVER THE SAME. BALLETS RUSSES a film by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller Unearthing a treasure trove of archival footage, filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have fashioned a dazzlingly entrancing ode to the rev- olutionary twentieth-century dance troupe known as the Ballets Russes. What began as a group of Russian refugees who never danced in Russia became not one but two rival dance troupes who fought the infamous “ballet battles” that consumed London society before World War II. BALLETS RUSSES maps the company’s Diaghilev-era beginnings in turn- of-the-century Paris—when artists such as Nijinsky, Balanchine, Picasso, Miró, Matisse, and Stravinsky united in an unparalleled collaboration—to its halcyon days of the 1930s and ’40s, when the Ballets Russes toured America, astonishing audiences schooled in vaudeville with artistry never before seen, to its demise in the 1950s and ’60s when rising costs, rock- eting egos, outside competition, and internal mismanagement ultimately brought this revered company to its knees. Directed with consummate invention and infused with juicy anecdotal interviews from many of the company’s glamorous stars, BALLETS RUSSES treats modern audiences to a rare glimpse of the singularly remarkable merger of Russian, American, European, and Latin American dancers, choreographers, composers, and designers that transformed the face of ballet for generations to come. — Sundance Film Festival 2005 FILMMAKERS’ STATEMENT AND PRODUCTION NOTES In January 2000, our Co-Producers, Robert Hawk and Douglas Blair Turnbaugh, came to us with the idea of filming what they described as a once-in-a-lifetime event.
    [Show full text]
  • Ballets Russes
    CINEMIEN Film & Video Distribution ABC Distribution Amsteldijk 10 Kaasstraat 4 1074 HP Amsterdam 2000 Antwerpen t. 020 – 577 6010 t. 03 – 231 0931 www.cinemien.nl www.abc-distribution.be [email protected] [email protected] presenteren / présentent: BALLETS RUSSES EEN FILM VAN / UN FILM DE DAYNA GOLDFINE & DAN GELLER Persmappen en beeldmateriaal van al onze actuele titels kunnen gedownload van onze site: www.cinemien.nl of www.abc-distribution.be Link door naar PERS en vul in; gebruikersnaam: ‘pers’, wachtwoord: ‘cinemien’ BALLETS RUSSES– synopsis (NL) Een schitterende documentaire over een revolutionaire dansgroep die bekend staat als het Ballet Russe. De groep is ontstaan uit een groep Russische vluchtelingen die nooit in Rusland hebben gedanst en splitste zich later op in twee rivaliserende dansgroepen: de ‘Original Ballet Russe’ en de ‘Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo’. De documentaire begint bij de oprichting in 1909 door de befaamde Serge Diaghilev, beschrijft de oprichting van de Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo na de dood van Diaghilev in 1929, het ontstaan van een tweede Ballets Russes groep, de voorspoedige jaren ’30 en ’40 toen het Ballet Russe door Amerika toerde, tot de ondergang in de jaren ’50 en ’60 door stijgende kosten, groeiende ego’s, competitie van buiten en intern wanbeleid. Niet alleen choreografen als Balanchine en Massine, maar ook schilders als Matisse, Dali en Picasso werkten voor de revolutionaire Ballets Russes. Om over componisten als Claude Debussy en Igor Stravinsky nog maar te zwijgen. Wereldsterren als Alicia Markova, Irina Baranova en Marc Platt halen herinneringen op. Velen van de Ballets Russes dansers van weleer zijn nu tachtig of negentig, maar zijn nog steeds actief in de balletwereld.
    [Show full text]
  • Black-Ballerina-Discussion-Guide.Pdf
    1 WHAT’S MISSING? A STUDY AND DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR BLACK BALLERINA What’s Missing? The documentary film BLACK BALLERINA tells the story of several black women from different generations who fell in love with ballet. Six decades ago, Joan Myers Brown, Delores Browne, and Raven Wilkinson faced racism in their pursuit of careers in classical ballet. Today, young dancers of color continue to face formidable challenges breaking into the overwhelmingly white world of ballet. Moving back and forth in time, this lyrical, character-driven film presents a fresh discussion about race, inclusion, and opportunity across all sectors of American society. ___________________ WHAT IS CLASSICAL BALLET? What is known today as classical ballet began in the “...When a disgruntled military attempted at royal courts of France and developed through the noble houses one point to install a monarchy with George of the Italian Renaissance. In the 15th century, noblemen and Washington as king, he fiercely resisted.” women attended lavish dinners, especially wedding celebrations, Wilf Hey, “George Washington: The Man where dancing and music created elaborate spectacles. Dancing Who Would Not Be King,” 2000 masters taught the steps to the nobility and the court participated in the performances. In the 16th century, Catherine de Medici— an Italian noblewoman, wife of King Henry II of France, and a great patron of the arts—began to fund ballet in the French court. A century later, King Louis XIV helped to popularize and standardize the new art form. A devoted dancer, he performed many roles. His love of ballet led to its development from a party activity for members of the court to becoming a practice requiring disciplined professional training.
    [Show full text]
  • A Choreographic Exploration of Race and Gender Representation in Film and Dance Sharon M
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2017 A Choreographic Exploration of Race and Gender Representation in Film and Dance Sharon M. Keenan Scripps College Recommended Citation Keenan, Sharon M., "A Choreographic Exploration of Race and Gender Representation in Film and Dance" (2017). Scripps Senior Theses. 1002. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1002 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Choreographic Exploration of Race and Gender Representation in Film and Dance By Sharon M. Keenan Submitted to Scripps College in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts Professor Brosterman Professor Williamson Friday, April 28, 2017 P a g e | 1 P a g e | 2 Dedication To my parents for pushing me to do my best in whatever I pursue To my dancers… Maile Blume Caroline Bourscheid Cali Giuggio Julia Griffin Sydney Levine Hannah State …for making my artistic vision come to life To Ronnie, Gail, Kevin, Suchi and Kim for providing immense support and mentorship P a g e | 3 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • A Historical Perspective the Evolution of Historically Black Ballet Companies— from Katherine Dunham to Arthur Mitchell
    Black Swans Shattering the Glass Ceiling: A Historical Perspective the Evolution of Historically Black Ballet Companies— From Katherine Dunham to Arthur Mitchell The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Jackson, La'Toya Princess. 2019. Black Swans Shattering the Glass Ceiling: A Historical Perspective the Evolution of Historically Black Ballet Companies— From Katherine Dunham to Arthur Mitchell. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42004127 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use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
    [Show full text]
  • Raven Wilkinson Eulogy
    ‘Ballet, you fall in love with it… Your body falls in love with it… It’s like singing with your body.’ Raven Wilkinson 3 Raven Wilkinson her understanding of the world. ‘Experienc- 1935 2018 es like that are revelatory. But I was lucky.’ While she did not come to physical harm, Anne Raven Wilkinson was a ballerina, the struggles of trying to become accepted one who knew dancing was her calling within the wider ballet world began to ex- from an early age. Born in Manhattan in haust her. Even while winning soloist posi- 1935, she was just five years old when her tions, the most prestigious roles were never mother took her to see the Ballet Russe de given to her. Odette/Odile is perhaps the Monte-Carlo perform ‘Coppélia’, the tale most coveted female role in modern ballet of a seemingly living doll. Even as a child, and the heart of ‘Swan Lake’. It requires the something about the experience resonated dancer to perform two characters, both the deeply. ‘I remember being so overwhelmed beautiful, doomed swan queen Odette and by the orchestra, the curtains, the lights, her nemesis Odile—and it was a role that that I started crying,’ she later told in- kept being denied to Raven. In an interview dustry magazine Pointe. She would go with The Washington Post, she said: ‘I had on to become one of the most significant been in the Ballet Russe all these years, American ballet dancers of all time; that having solos, and suddenly someone came fateful visit ignited a passion in her for to me and said, “You’ve gone as far as you ballet that persisted until her death.
    [Show full text]
  • Appendix 1: Joan Myers Brown — Annotated Resume
    APPENDIX 1: JOAN MYERS BROWN — ANNOTATED RESUME Compiled by Brenda Dixon Gottschild with input from Takiyah Nur Amin and Nyama McCarthy Brown. Activities recorded through 2010. December 25, 1931: Joan, their fi rst and only child, is born to Julius and Nellie Myers at Graduate Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Joan and her parents live in Philadelphia, first at Sixteenth and Christian Streets until they move to Forty- Second and Woodland Streets in 1934/1935 and then to 4638 Paschall Avenue in 1938/1939. ( July 28, 1910: Julius Thomas Myers born in Wadesboro, North Carolina. Of seventeen siblings, he was the youngest of six of the brothers who moved to Philadelphia together around the end of the 1920s. He worked as a chef at 2601 Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Later he owned a restaurant on Forty- Second and Woodland Street near the family residence. Thereafter, he worked at the Sun Ship Yard. Julius Myers’ mother, Mariah Sturdevant passed away in her early forties; Julius Myers said she was a Jewish woman of German descent. February 23, 1915: Nellie (Lewis) Myers born in Philadelphia, her family having migrated from Virginia. She attended the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science in the 1930s and worked in the chemical research and chemical engineering department of the Arcos Corporation for thirty years.) 1937–1942 : Joan attends the Alexander Wilson Elementary School. 1938–1939: Joan Myers trains with Sydney King at Essie Marie Dorsey’s dance school and also with King in classes held in the basement of King’s residence to strengthen a broken foot.
    [Show full text]
  • A Conversation with Raven Wilkinson from Ballet Review Fall 2007 Cover Photo from in the Wings by Kyle Froman: New York City Ballet Rehearsing Serenade
    Fall 2007 Ball et Revi ew A Conversation with Raven Wilkinson from Ballet Review Fall 2007 Cover photo from In the Wings by Kyle Froman: New York City Ballet rehearsing Serenade . © 2007 Dance Research Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 London, Ontario – Gary Smith 5 Chicago – Joseph Houseal 7 Toronto – Gary Smith 8 Washington, DC – George Jackson 10 New York – Marilyn Hunt 11 Toronto – Gary Smith 12 London – Joseph Houseal 15 Toronto – Gary Smith 16 New York – David Vaughan 18 Toronto – Gary Smith 50 19 Philadelphia – Leigh Witchel Michael Langlois 22 A Conversation with Raven Wilkinson 33 By With To & From Lincoln Edited by Kirstein: Drawings, Prints, Francis Mason and Photographs Ballet Review 35.3 Fall 2007 23 Don Daniels Associate Editor 50 David LaMarche on and Designer: Music for Dance Marvin Hoshino Associate Editor: Camille Hardy Don Daniels 69 Fille in Paris Assistant Editor: Joel Lobenthal Ellen Bar Editorial Consultant: 72 Behind the Scenes †Shields Remin e 33 Photographers: Joseph Houseal Tom Brazil 79 Ann Barzel (1905–2007) Costas Subscriptions: Clement Crisp Roberta Hellman 81 London Reporter Copy Editor: Barbara Palfy 91 Joseph Cornell – Debra Cash Associates: 92 Music on Disc – George Dorris Peter Anastos 100 Check It Out Robert Gres kovic George Jackson 16 Elizabeth Kendall Paul Parish Nancy Reynolds James Sutton David Vaughan Edward Willinger Cover photo from In the Wings by Kyle Froman: Sarah C. Woodcock New York City Ballet rehearsing Serenade . Les Sylphides , Ballet Russe, 1957. (Photo: courtesy of Raven Wilkinson) 22 ballet review A Conversation with money for, a nice building where mostly mid - dle-class black people lived.
    [Show full text]
  • Discrimination in Ballet Balacki 1
    Balacki: Discrimination in Ballet Balacki 1 Jackie Balacki Discrimination in Ballet Discrimination and segregation have been two huge issues in American History. Going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, this case brought up the idea of “separate but equal”. Leading into the idea of the Jim Crow laws was around the time that segregation played a role. Children went to different schools, and people had different facilities based on the color of their skin. Later, the civil rights movement was initiated by Southern Blacks in 1950 to break the existence of segregation. However, this has proceeded to be an obstacle in many aspects of society. It ranged from positions on sporting teams and segregated neighborhoods, to public education and facilities. Discrimination has also made its way into the performing arts profession. Growing up in my generation, I have been fortunate enough to not witness the extreme which some people took this issue. I have been a dancer since the age of 3, and a competitive dancer since the age of 8. This art has been a huge part of my life and throughout all my years, I have not seen major discrimination against those who are of different color than I am. I have danced with others of different color skin than me, competed against them, and even took master classes with them. I found those men and women to be equally as beautiful in performing their passion for all in the audience. Unfortunately, the world of dance was not always this accepting of those of different color. African American dancers have faced many hardships in trying to make it into the profession and be accepted.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Black Swans: Black female Ballet Dancers and the Management of Emotional and Aesthetic Labor Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2bd0j5rm Author Robinson, Sekani L. Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Black Swans: Black Female Ballet Dancers and the Management of Emotional and Aesthetic Labor A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Sociology by Sekani L. Robinson Committee in charge: Professor France Winddance Twine, Chair Professor Victor Rios Assistant Professor Tristan Bridges Assistant Professor Monique Meunier December 2018 The Master’s Thesis of Sekani L. Robinson is approved. ____________________________________________ Victor Rios ____________________________________________ Tristan Bridges _____________________________________________ Monique Meunier ____________________________________________ France Winddance Twine, Committee Chair December 2018 Black Swans: Black Female Ballet Dancers and the Management of Emotional and Aesthetic Labor Copyright © 2018 by Sekani L. Robinson iii ABSTRACT Black Swans: Black Female Ballet Dancers and the Management of Emotional and Aesthetic Labor by Sekani L. Robinson Ballet is an elite profession that remains predominantly white. Black dancers have been historically excluded and remain severely underrepresented in
    [Show full text]
  • Rond De Jambe Rond a L I G N M E N T
    L’AIR EN Introduction: Owning Your Power TOUR TOUR “As dancers, we’re constantly pushing ourselves to be perfect. It’s great to be able to push yourself and aim for something, but also know that you will never achieve perfection.” isty Copeland made headlines in 2015, when she was promoted to principal Mdancer at American Ballet Theatre, the first African American woman to be named to that position at what is arguably the country’s most prestigious ballet company. She had struggled for years—both personally and professionally—to be recognized as someone who has a voice. And, now, she had finally arrived. Since that moment, Misty has been in the spotlight more than ever. Not only has she performed lead roles in classical ballets around the world, but she has danced in a Disney feature film, launched a signature apparel line with Under Armour, appeared as the face of an Estée Lauder fragrance campaign, posed for this year’s Pirelli calendar, and been the subject of countless newspaper and magazine articles. But she has never lost sight of her true passion—ballet—and how much she enjoys telling stories through movement. Misty grew up in an unstable, broken family in San Pedro, California, and started taking ballet lessons when she was 13—far later than most girls, who often begin training as young as two. Her ballet teacher at the time immediately recognized Misty’s talent. Within just a few years, Misty had won the distinguished performing arts Spotlight Award from the Music Center in Los Angeles, danced in Debbie Allen’s Chocolate Nutcracker at UCLA’s Royce Hall, MEET YOUR FELLOW COPELAND MISTY DANCE ENTHUSIASTS and was accepted into the Summer Intensive program for American Head to community.masterclass.
    [Show full text]