https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBcOByHpeY

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35915431)

I will always reiterate that I am by no means the best in ballet. I understand my position and what I represent. I know that I’m in a very unique position and have been given a rare platform. All I’ve ever wanted is to bring ballet to more people and to help to diversify it.

I’ve worked extremely hard to be where I am and I believe that what I bring to the table is authentic artistry with a unique point of view through my life experiences, and my unusual path and upbringing. Also as a black woman and black ballerina. I would love to see all of the incredible deserving black dancers get the opportunities that I have.

I will forever be humbled and extremely grateful for the fact that I get to do what I love for a living, that I get to do all of the incredible roles that I do, in particular Swan Queen.

There are so many ballerinas that never get to experience dancing the most iconic and demanding role in a ballerinas repertoire. I have so so so much respect for what I do and for the ballerinas I stand on the shoulders of. I’m in awe everyday that I am a part of such an incredible art form that has changed and enriched my life in so many ways and that I get to do it all with ABT.

I don’t decide who’s promoted or what roles I dance. I never envisioned myself as the Swan Queen after being in the company for almost 15 years before i was given the opportunity. I have such deep and conflicting feelings connected to Swan Lake. As a black woman and as a ballerina given the chance to take on this role. I often question if I deserve to perform this role. My conclusion, I do. Some of the most memorable Swan Queens in history have brought so much more to this role without having to present the incredible and evolved technique of today by doing insane tricks that bring some to see Swan Lake. For the anticipated 32 fouettés. But it is so much more than that. People come to see ballet for the escape. For the experience of being moved through our movement and artistry, not to score us on the technicality of what we do. This is why ballet is not a sport.

A ballerinas career is not, nor should be defined by how many fouettés she executes. They are a part of the choreography to tell a story of pulling off the entrancement she holds over prince Siegfried. The point is to finish the 3rd act with a whirlwind movement that sucks him in just one last time before it’s revealed that Odile is not Odette.

This is the incredible beauty of ballet. To move people.

I’m happy to have this dialogue because it’s something I believe in whole heartedly. The history of ballet and it’s origin of pure freedom and expression is what we need to hold onto. Not to come into the theatre as a critic armed with judgement.

I do appreciate the changes in the ballet technique, focused on evolving our technical abilities, but the point is to move people and for them to understand the stories we tell through dance. And that is an incredible responsibility and opportunity I will never take for granted.

What followed were gushing puff pieces in Elle, Dance Magazine, Glamour #1, Glamour #2, Cosmopolitan. Glowing comments from Glamour included: “Misty Copeland is one of the most talented working ballerinas right now, full stop.” “For what it’s worth, Copeland’s so-called “fail” was absolute fire.” Dance Magazine’s contribution to this media blitz was to argue that fouettés don’t matter, and that Misty is held to a higher standard than other dancers. This looks like an orchestrated public relations effort to get out in front of the negative video: (1) post a comment early in the comment thread of the video; (2) find a negative comment on Twitter and respond; (3) alert media allies for favorable press portraying gracious Misty versus The Haters.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916648)

No longer must we rely on descriptions of her turns in the iconic Swan Lake segment as it is now on YouTube. A pirate video from ABT’s March 15 Swan Lake performance has been the source of much commentary (postings on BalletAlert go on for pages). The 57-second video filmed from the audience shows the turn section of the Grand Pas de Deux with Misty and Herman Cornejo in which Misty does 13 turns followed by piqué turns to fill out the music before Herman does pirouettes á la seconde.

My thoughts:

Some suggest that Misty had an off night in Singapore. I disagree. Her Singapore fouettés were not an anomaly as the video generally represents the quality of her turns, albeit at a slightly lower level. I saw her in Don Quixote and Swan Lake last Met season. She generally performed 15-18 fouetté turns followed by simpler piqué turns to fill out the music as she did in Singapore. The only difference is that her Singapore segment was captured on video.

Her fouettés are tentative, without the necessary energy and gusto to maintain the repetitive series of turns. Her “spotting” lacks spark as her head blandly moves from front to front (spotting is a technique dancers use during turns by delaying rotation of the head until it snaps around to the original position, focusing on a particular “spot” while the body rotates at a constant speed.) Also characteristic of her turns is a rightward movement of her body during the turns. Last year, she started her turns stage left rather than center stage to compensate. In Singapore she started slightly stage right. Given her progressive movements to the right, she had to shut down the turns before she ran out of space.

On the video, it wasn’t just her fouetté turns that were problematic; her piqué turns that followed were also lackluster, with her trailing leg barely off the ground rather than in a retiré position.

The contrast between her turn segment and Herman’s is stark. Herman was impressive as always in his pirouettes á la seconde (also known as turns in second position), a great mix of power and control. The point of Odile’s technical wizardry with 32 turns is to whip Prince Siegfried into a state of extreme desire, enticing the Prince to break his vow to Odette. Given the mismatch of technical achievement, it looks as if the Prince is seducing Odile, not in line with the story.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916727)

Misty’s source of celebrity status is different from the dancers above. Rather than gaining fame through jaw-dropping technical achievement and memorable dramatics, her source of popularity is her background and path breaking accomplishment as the first African-American Principal Dancer at ABT. For star dancers, dancing principal roles in their early 20s was just the start of their journey. For Misty’s fans, her promotion to Principal Dancer at age 32 is an end itself, with her performances a celebration of her achievement.

For her fans, technical commentary on her dancing misses the main point; her primary contribution is that she has broken barriers in the ballet world, serving as an inspiration and role model to many who would otherwise not be exposed to the art form, helping to diversify dance. To her detractors, the publicity she generates is out of proportion to her accomplishments on stage. Examples are comments from Glamour above in addition to the Dance Magazine Power List of the most influential people in dance, proclaiming that she is “…the ballerina of our generation.”

A video that shows technique not up to current day standards adds to the gulf between her technical abilities and her press fueled celebrity status.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916729)

Empty list.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916813)

you don't see pianists at the chopin competition "simplify" the more difficult codas because "the goal is to move people"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916884)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916902)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916971)

lots of kyooties too

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35917430)

i just saw this, "A Principal Dancer at American Ballet Theatre in New York, NY earns an average of $177,038, ranging from $175,998 at the 25th percentile to $178,071 at the 75th percentile, with top earners (the top 10%) earning more than $179,012. Compensation is derived from fewer than 20 profiles, including base salary, equity and bonus."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35917459)

ballet is great. in fact, i have tickets to take my niece next month and she is thrilled.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918042)

Prince tp: replacing urinal cakes at CVS

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35916980)

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-goldman-sachs-partner-behind-misty-copeland-2015-6

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35917016)

lol libs

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35917481)

"One reason why a lot of black women struggle to find employment in ballet is because of their body type. Typically, black people tend to build muscle a lot easier then most white people. This often means that black women training in ballet will not achieve the right lines as their muscles are too bulky. That is what is meant by her not having the right body type. So she has clearly worked hard to not overbuild her muscles. However, in the end I definitely do not consider her to be one of the greats by any means."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35917506)

6 days ago (edited)

Mallorie, I'll try to explain the best I can, but please read through :)) Also, I can not speak for everybody here, just for myself.

The most important differential is do you like ballet, and how much classical Petipa ballet have you seen in your life?The reason I'm asking, is because if you are new to it, everything will look just fine, but it is not... It takes some background, knowledge, and a trained eye to tell the difference. I was rooting for Misty, and in most cases was very forgiving of her occasional technical deficiencies, until I read her answer to critique for this performance. There she called 100 year old technique "insane tricks", people who pay attention to it, someone who came ONLY to count fouettes. She defended her right to dance these parts, and subversively pushed that artistry is more important that technique. You see, in classical ballet artistry does not exist without solid technique, never. For people who love and cherish classical Petipa ballets with their over 100 year old traditions this is about preserving a time honored tradition in a beloved art form.

It appears that Misty has never been able to fulfill technical requirements of Petipa ballets, there is no evidence of that (again, an untrained eye will not see it). Thus she and her supporters are pushing for easier version of choreography, and baletomans are objecting.

There is also a big question if Misty brings new spectators to ballet, will they only watch her, and leave not interested in ballet and other dancers, or they will become people interested in this old art form. There is a concern that the latter may never happen, and people are mostly attracted to Misty's status as celebrity, and not a dancer. In which case, why do we loose classical choreography for? Is it even worth it? Why not cast Misty in parts that are more suitable for her like Firebird, or Romeo and Juliet.

There is a suspicion that the administration wants to cast her in the most acclaimed parts to deceive the viewers that she is fully capable to fulfill all the technical requirements Petipa ballets have. There is probably (I"m guessing) a push to capitalize on the residual interest from the movie Black swan, and bring in Misty's supporters.

But for ballet tradition, ballet devotees, and probably for preserving choreography in Petipa ballets, these are all wrong choices. So people like me are opposing this trend to "water down" classical ballet..

-----------------------------------------------------

This is the MFCR, and it kinda reminds me of golf and Tiger Woods. Did Tiger really expand golf, or did people just watch him for his celebrity?

I've LONG argued on xo that Americans aren't fans of sports (or even high culture like ballet), but instead are simply fans of celebrity and event status. This commenter seems to agree to some extent.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918072)

Tiger did shit over and over again that had not been done before. Misty can't do the basics.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35921630)

The commenter was saying that one of the pro-Misty arguments is that she will bring more attention and viewers to ballet, but she questions whether that attention will be solely focused on Misty and won't last after she's gone, in which case ballet's fan base won't have really been expanded because of Misty.

In some respects Tiger had the same effect. A lot of people only watched golf FOR him; they didn't become long-lasting golf fans.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35921654)

i still can't countenance a comparison of the two.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35921687)

i think the takeaway is that cultivating fan bases based on celebrity only creates fans of celebrity, not fans of the underlying activity.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35921726)

Isn't she really old for a ballet dancer?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918250)

she didn't start dancing until like age 13

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918287)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointe_technique

>> Although age is not necessarily a prerequisite, many ballet students do not begin to dance en pointe earlier than approximately 12–14 years of age because bones in the feet are often too soft prior to that age and, in such cases, serious and permanent foot injuries could result from starting pointe work too early.[1][6][7] The long bones in feet begin to harden within the ages of 8 to 14, dancing en pointe before one's bones have hardened can lead to trauma and growth-plate fractures that create deformed feet.[2] <<

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918365)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35919392)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxT5gnXs4Ug

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918313)

the russian woman posted earlier seems more CR

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35918327)

"Now that she's a principal, she has suffered more than the mythical character of Moses in order to scale the mountains of ballet! The real reason she's been held back is lack of high-end skills, which she herself admits. And this promotion was a marketing bonanza for ABT, because if you've ever actually paid the $265 to see her dance as Odette in 'Swan Lake' or as Gamzatti in 'La Bayadère' for example, you'd realize it's a great disappointment to see that both the solo and PDD parts were changed in order to accommodate her inability to perform higher-end skills. Alexei Ratmansky, the former artistic director of the Bolshoi, remodeled the choreography of Firebird to accommodate her limitations. I saw Copeland dance a pas de deux with Herman Cornejo for Kenneth MacMillan's ballet "Manon," and her fouettes were low and her grand jetes were jumped almost in place. I wasn't the only one in the audience cringing.

Compare her to Alina Cojocaru, Polina Semionova, Lucia Lacarra, Dorothee Gilbert -- or anyone -- and within three minutes you realize you're watching the understudy. Copeland's promotion to principal is great TV talkshow faire, but not on stage. I'm done."

https://www.reddit.com/r/BALLET/comments/3xeav5/the_rise_and_rise_of_misty_copeland/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35919369)

"Last time I checked, ABT alone had dancers of Filipino descent, at least ten Asian or Asian-American dancers, five Brazilian dancers, and six dancers of Hispanic heritage. Hey, but only the black girl "struggled."

But on her hardluck story, she recalls, in her own words:

"I came from a San Pedro, California, family that didn't always have enough food to eat, let alone money to spend on a hobby, and it wasn't until I was 13 years old that I could even take my first ballet class. Most of my dance peers had grown up immersed in the arts, putting on their first tutus not long after they learned to talk. They had summered in Europe, while I didn't get my first passport until I was 17. Their families had weekend homes. I had spent part of my adolescence living on the floor of a shabby motel with my single mom."

She tells the story differently depending on the audience, and so does her mother. They briefly lived at the Sunset Inn in Gardena, California and her dance class fees were waived, and soon after she moved in Cindy Bradley and her husband, who owned the dance studio in San Pedro. At 15, Copeland attended the San Francisco Ballet summer intensive program on a full scholarship; at the end of it she was invited to study with the school. (She turned the invitation down.) Does that sound like discrimination to you?

What does "summering in Europe" have to do with learning to dance? There are dance seminars and courses during holidays around the world, not just in Europe. And when asked which motels she ever stayed in, she can't remember, even though living in a motel day-by-day is one of the most expensive and foolish wastes of money unless she's talking very short-term stays. I doubt her mom was working three jobs and still starving.

Then she talks at length about her "curvy" and "black" body and how she didn't have a 'Balanchine' body and that held her back, but that springs from genetics, not from outside discrimination. Besides, the company that does Balachine was New York City Ballet, not American Ballet Theatre (ABT). Copeland could have moved up the ranks much faster had she chosen any other company, but she wanted to dance in the corps for ABT, period. As for her body, there are women with much better bodies and more curves in ballet than Misty -- Sylvie Guillem, Iana Salenko, Elisa Carrillo Cabrera, Shoko Nakamura, Polina Semionova, Natasha Kusch, Marina Kanno, Beatrice Knop, Nadja Saidakova, Jordin Mullin, Elisa Carrillo Cabrera... I could do this all day, but you see the point.

Yet every other teen star athlete shares a similar story of family sacrifice. Read how entire families will support a young man in the minor leagues of baseball for as many as ten years before finally getting one day in the majors. Or of professional boxers who spend 15 years boxing every venue within an 800-mile radius of their home before they finally get a chance at a fight that really pays off. Tennis players, wrestlers, football, soccer, basketball players all share the same struggle. Sierra Leone-born Michaela DePrince spent her early years in an orphanage after her father was killed during the civil war in her country!"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35919373)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEmByS22u8E

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35919762)

p.s. my knowledge about ballet is comprised entirely of the content of this thread.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35919609)

It's always this way. Whenever a mixed or light-skinned black person is lauded as pretty, smart or talented, xoxo rushes to say that they're not really black but if the same person is caught robbing a liquor or something they're just a plain ole nigger.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3959305&forum_id=2#35919719)