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The first night I danced "The Firebird"
at American Ballet Theater,
I wasn't yet a principal dancer.
I was still a soloist,
12 years into the company,
carrying the weight of roles
I had dreamed of
but not yet been given.
My body was in agony.
For weeks, I had ignored the deep,
aching pain in my leg,
convincing myself that it would
somehow just go away.
But this wasn't just
an opportunity for me.
It felt bigger than that.
I was the first Black woman
to perform this role in ABT's history.
Dancing "The Firebird" for me was a chance
to honor the generations
of Black dancers who came before me,
dancers who never made it to the stage
of the Metropolitan Opera House.
It was a chance to prove
that future generations
could stand on that stage,
and it could be theirs, too.
I wasn't going to let pain steal that.
The house was sold out.
The energy in the room was undeniable.
But the real power
was in the people who showed up.
It was the most diverse audience
the Met had ever seen
for a ballet performance.
(Applause)
People of every background gathered
to witness a Black woman
step into the title role
in a space that had rarely welcomed
anyone who looked like me before.
They weren't just there for a show,
they were there for everyone
who had ever been told,
"You don't belong here."
Everyone who had ever been knocked down
or discouraged from pursuing their dream.
As I stepped onto the stage,
the cheers were so loud,
I could barely hear the orchestra.
Because in that moment,
what had always felt impossible,
was now inevitable.
The next morning,
I couldn't get out of bed.
Every step sent lightning through my leg.
The test results revealed
what I had tried to will away.
Six stress fractures in my tibia.
I had danced an entire
performance on a broken leg.
Now it's hard to explain
the mix of emotions I felt.
Pain, yes, but also pride.
Fear and an unexpected calm
that washed over me
knowing I had poured
everything I had into that role.
In giving it my all,
I recognized that it was
never only about me.
And in that moment,
I understood something essential.
Resilience isn't about being unbreakable.
It isn't about pretending
the pain isn't there.
It's about moving
through the pain with purpose,
steadying yourself
when the ground shifts beneath you,
and holding on to calm
long enough to keep going.
A lesson I would need again and again.
That clarity was a far cry
from my childhood,
where nothing felt certain.
My mother raised six of us kids,
largely on her own,
and for much of my childhood
we didn't have a home.
We bounced around from motels,
sleeping on friends’ couches,
never sure if there
would be food on the table,
never knowing if we were going
to have to change schools the next day.
So as a child, I just assumed
everyone had what I craved the most.
The one thing that felt
so out of reach for me.
And that was stability.
I kept people at a distance.
I didn't want anyone to know
what we were going through at home.
I carried this quiet shame
and this loneliness,
so heavy that I barely spoke.
I mean, my nickname was Mouse.
I suffered from fierce migraines
that would stop me dead in my tracks.
And then at 13,
late by every standard,
I touched a ballet bar for the first time.
It wasn't in a studio.
It was on a basketball court
at the San Pedro Boys and Girls Club,
in my gym clothes and socks.
But the moment my hand
rested there on that bar,
something shifted inside me.
For the first time,
my body released its tension.
The music, the movement,
the discipline,
it all gave me consistency.
A rhythm to hold on to.
My migraines disappeared.
My posture straightened.
My confidence began to flicker awake.
Ballet made me feel alive
and like I had purpose.
It gave me stability when nothing else
around me was stable.
It taught me how to quiet
the storm inside me
and how to channel pain into artistry.
It gave me the resilience
to survive and, in time, truly thrive.
But ballet was not always
the safe place I hoped it would be.
I was the only Black woman
in a company of more than 80 dancers.
And for all the stability and belonging
I had discovered early on in ballet,
I also had to face the reality
that this art form,
shaped centuries ago in European courts,
was not originally intended
for people who looked like me.
In my third year
as a corps de ballet member,
the decision was made to exclude me
from a filmed production of "Swan Lake"
because I was told my brown skin
would disrupt the aesthetic.
Hearing those words cut deeper
than I can describe.
In a single sentence,
everything I loved about ballet,
the beauty, the discipline,
the stability it had given me
was turned against me.
I stood in the studio,
surrounded by my peers,
but I felt utterly invisible.
I went home devastated,
questioning whether this
was truly a place for me
to be in this world of ballet
that I had dedicated myself to.
And yet the next morning,
I came back to the studio.
And not because I felt strong,
but because I feared if I walked away,
the door might close forever
and not just for me,
but for anyone who might follow.
Resilience in that moment was not grand.
It was quiet.
It was showing up again
even when my heart was broken.
More than a decade later,
it was that same ballet,
that damn "Swan Lake,"
that gave me one of the most
powerful moments of my career.
A triumph built on the resilience
I had relied on long before,
back when showing up
despite setbacks felt impossible.
I was given the opportunity
to perform the Swan Queen,
the lead role in "Swan Lake,"
one of the most iconic roles
in a ballerina's repertoire.
(Applause)
By then, I was already a public figure,
but stepping into that role
with the kind of pressure
that was far from normal
for most ballerinas.
When most dancers debut a principal role,
"The New York Times" doesn't review them
before they've even stepped on stage.
There aren't articles declaring
that if they can't perform a sequence
of 32 fouettes perfectly,
they don't deserve a promotion.
But that was my reality.
Before I even danced a step,
my worth was being debated in print.
Every headline reminded me
that I wasn't being judged
solely on my artistry
or my technique,
but also on the fact
that I was a Black woman
standing in a role where no Black woman
at ABT had stood before.
And yet, in that pressure,
I returned to what ballet
had always been for me.
A language of artistry.
A way to tell stories.
A place to find calm and beauty,
when the world could be anything but.
When the day finally came
to debut as the Swan Queen,
Raven Wilkinson was in the audience.
Raven had been the first Black woman
to dance in a major
American ballet company,
the Ballet Russe
de Monte Carlo, in the 1950s,
performing across segregated America
while facing threats
from the Ku Klux Klan.
She never imagined,
and she told me this several times,
"I'd never imagined I would see
a Black woman in this role."
And at my curtain call,
she walked on stage
and placed flowers in my hands.
(Applause)
For both of us, it was a moment
of transformation,
a stage that had once
literally shut her out,
she was not allowed
to dance on that stage,
was now a stage that we could
stand on together.
Resilience had turned pain into beauty
and beauty into legacy.
In 2015, I was promoted to principal
dancer at American Ballet Theater,
the first Black woman in the company’s
then 75-year history.
(Applause)
But resilience doesn't end
with achievement.
It asks, what now?
For me, it meant expanding
the stage beyond the opera house.
As you can see,
I'm here dancing with Prince,
someone who definitely helped me
to expand the audience
that we were reaching through ballet;
through the Misty Copeland Foundation,
bringing ballet into communities
that once felt excluded;
through books,
giving children stories
they could see themselves through;
through film, showing movement
as a universal language.
Attempting to create new spaces
for beauty to take root,
and ensuring the stage is wide enough
for others to step onto,
has been a small way to offer
others the strength and support,
to discover their own resilience,
to build it and to store it
for the moments they would need it most.
So if you remember nothing
else from my story,
remember this.
Resilience doesn't require
an easy beginning
or a perfect ending.
It's about persistence
and showing up again and again.
It's the quiet decision
to return to rehearsal after rejection,
to rise when the world says
you don't belong.
To create beauty even when
the ground beneath you is unsteady.
That is the resilience
that ballet gave me.
And resilience is a skill
we can all draw on,
one that belongs to anyone,
anywhere, whenever it is needed.
(Music)
(Music ends)
Thank you.
(Cheers and applause)
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