Ok . . .this young lady is "AMAZING" . . . .not only is she talented, but she represents a "CURVY WOMAN"

  . . . I have a love for "BALLET"  &  I am fasinated by the grace and precise movemetns of this beautiful ART FORM. . . .I think it is one of the most beautiful expressions of ART & DANCE . . .I have been following her for about six years.  (haven't seen her perform as of yet, but I'm working on it!)

 

Read about her amazing journey and hear her interveiw about her "DANCE" with

the ONE & ONLY "PRINCE" with Madame Noire

 

 

 

 

Born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in San Pedro, California, Misty Copeland began her ballet studies at the age of 13 at the San Pedro Dance Center. At the age of fifteen she won first place in the Music Center Spotlight Awards. She then began her studies at the Lauridsen Ballet Center. Copeland has studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive on full scholarship and was declared ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000. She has danced Kitri in Don Quixote and the Sugar Plum Fairy and Clara in The Nutcracker.

Copeland joined ABT’s Studio Company in September 2000 and then joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001 and was appointed a Soloist in August 2007. Her roles with the Company include a Shade and the Lead D’Jampe in La Bayadère, Milkmaid in The Bright Stream, the Mazurka Lady in Coppélia, Gulnare and and Odalisque in Le Corsaire, the lead gypsy and a flower girl in Don Quixote, Duo Concertant, the Masks in Christopher Wheeldon's VIII, the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, one of The Nutcracker's Sisters in Alexei Ratmanksy's The Nutcracker, a Gypsy in Petrouchka, the Lead Polovtsian Girl in Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, the Saracen Dancer in Raymonda, a Harlot in Romeo and Juliet, the Fairy of Valor in The Sleeping Beauty, the pas de trois, a cygnet and the Hungarian Princess in Swan Lake, the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and roles in Airs, Amazed in Burning Dreams, Baker’s Dozen, Ballo della Regina, Birthday Offering, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Brief Fling, Company B, Désir, Gong, Hereafter, In the Upper Room, Overgrown Path, Pretty Good Year, Sechs Tänze, Sinatra Suite, Sinfonietta, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and workwithinwork.

Copeland created the Spanish Dance in Alexei RAtmansky's The Nutcracker and leading roles in C. to C. (Close to Chuck), Glow-Stop and One of Three.

Copeland was a receipient of a 2008 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts.

Ms. Copeland's performance's with American Ballet Theatre are sponsored by Susan Fales-Hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her legs are AMAZING . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Ballet is a formalized kind of performance dance, which originated in the Italian Renaissance  courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France, Russia, and Britain as a concert dance form.  The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with most of the audience seated on tiers or galleries on three sides of the dancing floor.  It has since become

 

 

 

 

Joseph Rickard

 

 

 

The First American Negro Ballet, directed by von Grona, opened in 1937 at the Lafayette Theater in

Harlem with a live orchestra. The repertory included his Firebird. The opening season of Ballet Theatre

 in 1940 included a Negro Unit, which presented one work, Black Ritual, choreographed by

Agnes de Mille. The First Negro Classic Ballet, directed by Rickard, premiered in Los Angeles in 1947,

 and was the first to present a complete repertoire on pointe. Hitchins formed the Negro Dance Theatre,

 an all-male company that performed in 1954. The New York Negro Ballet was at its peak in 1957,

when it toured Great Britain with Ward Flemyng as director. The group had begun performing in 1954

with six dancers from Maria Nevelska's studio and was variously called Ballet Negre or later

Ballet Americana, continuing until 1959 under the direction of Antony Bassae. In Washington, D.C.,

 Capitol Ballet, created in 1961 as the performing unit of the Jones-Haywood School, invited many distinguished African-American dancers and choreographers to be guest artists.

 

A few African American performers managed to find employment with large ballet companies.

Betty Nichols was featured in Zodiac, choreographed by Todd Bolender, and she and Talley Beatty

danced in Blackface, choreographed by Lew Christensen, during Ballet Society's 1947 season in

New York City. Beatty also danced with Ruth Page Ballets, based in Chicago, in the early fifties.

At New York City Ballet, Arthur Bell danced in Frederick Ashton's Illuminations in 1950, and

Louis Johnson danced in Jerome Robbins's Ballade in 1952. Raven Wilkinson joined

Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1956, perhaps the only black dancer to enter its ranks,

and later performed with Netherlands National Ballet. In 1956, Arthur Mitchell

became the first black dancer invited to become a full member of New York City Ballet,

where he rose to principal dancer before leaving to form Dance Theatre of Harlem.

 

Other dancers who worked under full-time contracts with ballet companies include Janet Collins

 in the Metropolitan Opera's ballet; Sylvester Campbell in Netherlands National Ballet and

Royal Winnipeg Ballet; John Jones in Jerome Robbins's Ballets: U.S.A., the Joffrey Ballet,

and the Harkness Ballet; Christian Holder and Gary Chryst in the Joffrey; and Keith Lee in the

 Harkness Youth Ensemble and American Ballet Theatre. Betsy Dickerson and

Elizabeth Thompson joined the Radio City Music Hall corps de ballet.

After World War II, Roland Petit's Ballets de Paris and the companies of several German opera houses,

notably Munich, Stuttgart, and Cologne, employed African American dancers. Gene Hill Sagan

danced with the Israel Opera and the Israel Classical Ballet. Ballet-trained black dancers also

found roles in Broadway shows, memorably in House of Flowers and Carmen Jones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Janet Collins                                                                                                                          Janet Collins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see African-American Ballet Dancers and the performance of Ballet has come a long way . . . .the struggle, the passion and the perseverance to become recognized as a Professional Ballet Dancer . . . has paid off  . . . .just as America has our First African-American President . . .America has the First African-American Bellaet Soloist . . .as we honor and pay respect to the Legends of the First American Negro Classic Ballet Dancers that paved the way and endured the plight  for young African-American dancers of today . . . .

 

 

For Nothing Is Impossible  . . .With GOD . . . (Luke 1:37)