Misty Copeland

As of 2008, Copeland has been the only African-American woman in the dance company for her entire American Ballet Theatre career, nor is there a male African-American since the departure of Danny Tidwell in 2005. In an international ballet community with a lack of diversity, she is a rare African-American ballerina, and although she has been shielded from several issues, she endures the difficulties of cultural isolation as the second African-American ABT soloist ballet dancer. Since she is often credited as the first African-American ABT soloist ballet dancer in the press, some describe her as the Jackie Robinson of classical ballet. Copeland also feels that since the female dancer is the focus of the ballet, her role as a trail-blazing performer and role model has extra significance. She is included in the 2004 picture book by former ABT dancer Rosalie O'Connor that is entitled Getting Closer: A Dancer's Perspective (ISBN 0-8130-2768-3). Copeland's performances with American Ballet Theatre are sponsored by Susan Fales-Hill.
• Early ABT career
Copeland auditioned for several dance programs in 1999, and each made her an offer to enroll in its summer program. Copeland performed with the ABT as part of its 1999 and 2000 Summer Intensive programs. During the summer of 1999, the topic of whether Copeland would stay if invited came up, and she responded affirmatively, although her mother insisted finishing high school was important. During that summer, she was told that she would likely be invited to stay after she graduated in 2000 and by the end of the summer she was asked to skip her senior year and join the studio company. Copeland returned to California for her senior year, even though the ABT arranged to pay for her performances, housing accommodations and academic arrangements. She studied at the Summer Intensive Program on full scholarship for both summers and was declared ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000. In the 2000 Summer Intensive Program, she danced the role of Kitri in Don Quixote. Of the 150 dancers in the 2000 Summer Intensive Program, she was one of six selected to join the junior dance troupe.
She joined the ABT Studio Company in September 2000, and became a member of its Corps de ballet in 2001. She spent most of her first year sidelined due to a lumbar stress fracture. As part of the Studio Company, which is the ABT's second company, she performed a duet in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. During her second year in the corps, she endured medically induced physical maturation, professional pressure to conform to conventional ballet aesthetics and a resulting binge eating disorder. During her years in the corps, she felt the burden of her ethnicity in many ways and contemplated a variety of career moves. On August 20, 2004, while on break from ABT, she met her biological father for the first time.