Ballet Dance: Misty Copeland is Attracting New Audiences to Ballet

If she dances, they will come.

 

Misty Copeland is disrupting age-old clichés about who makes up ballet audiences.

By now, New Yorkers are familiar with the phenomenon of Copeland — who two years ago became the first African-American in two decades to dance as a soloist for the American Ballet Theatre. Since then, you’ve probably seen her in Under Armour commercials, or heard about her movie deal or best-selling memoir.

And thanks to Copeland, 32, the crowds filling the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center are undergoing a major change.

“The audience used to just be older white people,” Copeland told The News in between rehearsals for her next solo performance in the world premiere of an untitled work choreographed by Liam Scarlett. The first performance is Wednesday.

Copeland became the first black ballerina in history to dance the lead in “The Firebird,” composer Igor Stravinsky’s breakthrough work — she noticed a change.

 

“That was the first night that I saw a huge shift in the ballet audience,” says Copeland. “It was so overwhelming and emotional to know that half of the Metropolitan Opera House was filled with African-American people there to support what I stood for.”

She says that a lot of them had no idea what “The Firebird” was, and that most had probably never been to the ballet before.

“But that’s what gets them in the door,” says Copeland.

After that performance, the offers started rolling in.

A Dr. Pepper ad, her autobiography, “Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina,” released earlier this year, a spread in Vogue Italia, and, in August, news broke that New Line Cinema is optioning a biopic based on her book.

Even though contracts for the film are just beginning to be hammered out, Copeland already has someone in mind to play her younger self.

“When I think of a young African-American girl who has so much talent,” Copeland says, “I think of Willow Smith. Someone like her who is probably capable of transforming and not being afraid of being vulnerable.”

Copeland — whose mom Sylvia, a former Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader, raised her and her five siblings in L.A., working up to 14 hours a day — already has some celebrity friends.

Copeland’s background both as a mentor and former mentee at the Boys and Girls Club led to her meeting Kerry Washington, another Club alum. Add Anika Noni Rose and Star Jones to Copeland’s circle of friends, and you have a powerful alliance.

“There’s just this group of strong black women who are in my corner,” says Copeland.

No call from Oprah yet, but it’s surely on the way.

Despite the fame and fortune (her Under Armour multiyear contract pays more than her ABT salary), Copeland isn’t nearly as excited about seeing her life portrayed on the big screen as she is about mentoring young black dancers as part of the ABT’s Project Plié program.

“There is so much diversity in ballet now,” says Alison Stroming, a dancer in her early 20s at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where Copeland advises young performers.

“She is always so positive and strong, which reminds me to keep that mindset in any situation,” says Stroming.

Standing 5’2½”, Copeland has the petite frame of most classical dancers, but instead of the rail-thin limbs and endless swan-like necks of her counterparts, she’s all muscle.

“I am constantly inspired by her mental strength and discipline as a dancer,” says Jennifer Whelan, a corps de ballet dancer at ABT. “She’s attracted a very diverse audience that perhaps in the past were not exposed to ballet.”

When Copeland debuts in the untitled work Wednesday, she won’t be able to see beyond the stage lights into the crowd. But she says her favorite moments are when she leaves the backstage entrance at Lincoln Center and sees who’s waiting for her.

“The African-American community in their tuxes, going to this event — that’s what we want to bring back,” she says. “Dance is not dying.”