NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - The Drink with Kate Snow: Misty Copeland

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Ballet gave a young and shy Misty Copeland the chance to feel confident and beautiful for the first time. After making history in the ballet world, Copeland is reaching out to young kids with her children’s books.

Hey everyone, this is Kate Snow. I recently had the chance to sit down with world-famous ballet dancer and now children's book author Misty Copeland. She has stolen the stage at the American Ballet Theater so many times, but she shared some pretty remarkable stories of the challenges conversations with people at the top of their game at NBCNews.com slash The Drink. There's a responsibility to carry on and open doors for so many other people. And that became my purpose beyond being a good dancer. That became like my biggest purpose. All right, Misty Copeland, what's your, what's your drink? I have a matcha green tea latte. Nice. I have a berry tea. It's strawberry. Ooh, that sounds really good. What's on your teacup? A Brown Ballerina.

It's this amazing, amazing group. They have an Instagram page called Brown Girls Do Ballet. Oh, wow. Yeah. Misty Copeland, you are a member of the company of the American Ballet Theater, one of the best in New York. You are one of the best ballerinas in the country. The short question is, how did this happen? It's been a long journey.

You know, I never dreamed as a child that I would at all be anywhere near this world, the classical ballet world. It wasn't something I grew up around. I didn't discover it. Well, I say it discovered me at 13 years old at my community center at the Boys and Girls Club when a local ballet teacher was going into communities and going into public schools and going into these community programs and looking for more diverse students that might not have the exposure or access or needs to be a part of it. And she found me there. And I took my first ballet class on the basketball court. You were 13. I was 13. Which is not old, but in ballet time, like really old. It is old. It is old for ballet. You know, a lot of dancers who are taking it seriously

quickly go on to audition and become professionals by the age of 16, 17. So I had a lot of catching up to do starting at 13. You're one of six kids. Yeah. Right. Six kids with a single mom and I saw that you said you were in the background a lot and now here you are you know center stage so how does that happen right you know it it's very interesting I I never and I still to this day don't ever look at what I do so showy or outwardly, it's almost this like this quiet way for me to communicate and express myself in a way where I've, I'd never felt as protected and comfortable as I did when I was on stage. And I think that it had a lot to do with the chaos of my, my adolescence and growing up in, you know, one of six children, it's very normal that, you know, one or two would lose their voice or, you know, it's just with so many opinions and so much personality, the way that I responded to

the constant moving around, not often having a home. The way I dealt with that was by vice not speaking and by being extremely introverted. And so it wasn't until ballet that I was like, well, this is a way I can express myself without having to speak. And it gave me a confidence and it gave me stability and it gave me security and it made me feel powerful and beautiful for the first time in my life. So as backwards as it sounds, it connected so closely and deeply with me that I could share my craft, but it was 17 years old, graduated from high school, and immediately joined American Ballet Theatre Studio Companies. And I was the only Black woman in American Ballet Theatre for the first decade of my career.

Yeah, let's say that again, you were the only African American woman in the company. Yeah. Of 80 people. Yes. Yeah. It's a lot to shoulder. It's a lot to, to be the unique only person. But it was, it was outside noise that started to affect me. It was outside noise that started to affect me. It was being taken out of casting if the ballet was going to be filmed for a movie or for television. I was performing these roles on stage almost every night. And then when it came time to film, I was removed because they didn't want to ruin the aesthetic of having one brown girl in the corps de ballet. And that was very common. It still to this day happens but it you know that's just what the dancers of color experience and worse they tell you their makeup

too i thought i heard you say that they asked you to lighten your skin yeah that's a really big part of the ballet culture when it went for dancers of color um it's again it's just another way that you know for you to fit into this uniform idea of what a ballerina is. And, you know, it came to a point where I literally sat down with the makeup artists and I was very naive about it. Having that conversation, it was kind of eye-opening that makeup artists just kind of looked at me and didn't really understand. It was just a part of the ritual, part of what we do without even really understanding it. She just said, I don't know, I guess you could just wear your own color. And it was kind of the start of this slow transition. But it was during those times

that I was like, why am I doing this? Do I really belong in this world? Like, what am I fighting for? How did you answer that question? Why am I doing this? I mean, I had many moments like that when I did a step back and reassess like my purpose and and it always came back to that this opportunity is so much bigger than than those obstacles and so much bigger than me just having that understanding and meeting other mentors and and black women and black dancers that made me feel that like you're in a position that so many didn't get to. And there's a responsibility to carry on and open doors for so many other people. And that became my purpose beyond being a good dancer.

That became like my biggest purpose. You've got this new book. I'm gonna reach for it. Bunheads. I got my copy. Thank you. It's a great book because you know why I love it? Because it doesn't even, it doesn't address the fact that you look different. It's just, you are who you are. You know what I mean? You're just a ballerina in this book. What I wanted to celebrate in this book, you know, a lot of the characters are based on my actual friends growing up in the ballet studio.

It was such a diverse group of people around me, as well as I really wanted to have a boy in there. And I think it's so important to have that representation for so many kids to see the possibilities of what you can be, the package that you come in doesn't matter. But it was the relationships and the friendships that really gave me the confidence to continue on in this field. I think just from watching so many incredible people mentor me, I've learned the value and the necessity of it. And that we should be trying to make young ones better than we are. And that's how we create a better world. And so that's just become a part of my life now. Can I end with some rapid fire questions? Okay. Favorite dance that's not ballet? Oh my God. Contemporary.

Biggest misconception about ballerinas? That it's easy. Best advice you ever got? Not to let other people's words define me. Worst advice you ever got? Not to follow my instincts. Weirdest thing about you? Um,

weirdest thing. Huh? I'm such a loner. I'm a loner and I'm clumsy. You're clumsy? No way. I do not believe that. I'm super clumsy,

yeah. You have such grace on the stage. I would say so, yes, on stage. Oh, it has been so delightful to talk with you.

Thank you so much. It was lovely to meet you. Thank you.