b'COPELAND:COPELAND: A: I\'ve had a very different experience when itA: I\'m a performer, and when I have to be on comes to that. The ballet studio that I wasI am on, but in my everyday life I\'m very introduced to was very small and very tight- relaxed and very quiet. I like to be at home knit, and race was not something that evercooking and listening to Sade or Drake. came up. Coming from a biracial background, my mother made it very clear that I amI feel like I definitely have a good balance biracial, but I will be seen by the world as ain my life and an amazing husband that black woman. So that was something thatunderstands all of those crazy aspects and I was very conscious of, but when I enteredall of me.the ballet world, it was like I was this fairy. I was told, "You have this ideal physique, andQ: INTERVIEWER: you have the right body proportions." Then(After your) brilliant I entered the professional ballet world in New York City, and I was like, Wow, I\'m in aperformance in Firebird, company of 80 dancers and I am the only black woman, and that went on for a decade.there were several New That was when I realized I don\'t look the part.York Times pieces, It wasn\'t just about the fact that I wasand one says, You capable and I had the right abilities and Ishould be promoted for had the right body proportion. There was this underlying thing that exists in the balletartistic reasons as well world, which is, You don\'t have the right skin color. It\'s something that I\'ve dealt with myas political reasons. entire professional career, and it\'s somethingPolitical reasons? That that I speak so openly about because I feel like it\'s an issue and it\'s something that needsstruck me as an odd to change in the ballet world. I think there are so many brown, black, minority dancerscomment.that look the part and have the right body proportions and the right physique, andA: COPELAND: they\'re told no because they don\'t have theYeah, it\'s a very interesting and difficult right skin color. position to be in, especially in the age that we live in today where everyone is a critic, INTERVIEWER:everyone\'s a journalist, and everyone has Q: Well, there\'s Mistyan opinion on social media. I understand that some people feel like, Okay, there\'s Copeland and there\'sbeen enough time. There has to be a black dancer to become a principal ballerina in Misty Copeland thea major ballet company, so even if it\'s for ballerina. Just in readingpolitical reasons, we should do it. And I never necessarily believed that. about you and talking I feel like because of my slow rise and not to you, theyre twomeeting my manager until I was, I don\'t know, different people. Talk to27, 28 years old, that people don\'t really understand the long journey and path I\'ve us about that. been on. I\'ve been in American Ballet Theatre 24 Langdale College of BusinessSPRING 2019 25'