Dancer, trailblazer Copeland charms UB audience

For Misty Copeland, the first Black woman to become principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre’s 75-year history, it all started with Mariah Carey.

Copeland, who spoke at UB Wednesday night as the university’s 49th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration keynote speaker, shared with her audience her “unstable” childhood, attending six different schools before second grade. But music was the constant. It became the “Copeland language,” she said, noting the family communicated through these songs and she would make up choreography to pop songs by Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker and — her favorite — a fellow bi-racial woman, Mariah Carey.

Finding the confidence to audition for the middle school drill team in Kansas City led to ballet class on the Boys and Girls club basketball floor. Very early, her teacher called her a “prodigy.” Four years later, she had her debut at Lincoln Center.

“It took a lot of pushing to get me to the ballet studio,” Copeland told those who had soldiered through the blustery winter night to hear her informal talk in the Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre.

“But once I was in the ballet studio, and I had on the ballet slippers and the tights and the leotards, I could see myself in the mirror,” she said. “That was magic. It was something I needed to do. Knowing I was going to ballet. Ballet became this incredible constant. For a child who didn’t have stability because of my upbringing, knowing I was going to ballet, having that comfort knowing what to expect completely changed everything for me. And it was music that brought me to dance.”

That was Copeland’s answer to the first question of the night, along with revealing that her mother was a professional cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs (“Don’t boo me,” Copeland said. “Hey, I wasn’t. OK?”). It warmed up the audience and set a personal tone for a crowd filled with young girls, many of them dancers using the event for a fashion statement. It was a perfect lead-in for more than an hour of informal chat.

Copeland — whose litany of honors and accomplishments laud her as a trailblazer in breaking the race barrier for principal ballet dancers, bestselling New York Times author and model for Under Armour athletic wear that drew 4 million YouTube views within a week — walked onstage with moderator and associate professor of theatre and dance Anne Burnidge with the ease of a campus regular. Wearing a black blouse, black pin-striped pants and heels that made her appear taller than her 5’2” height, Copeland, now 42 and a mother, seemed more like a friend your daughter brought home from college who was fine with sitting at the dinner table being friendly and open to anyone still in the dining room, all the time talking with her hands.

A few excerpts:

On the influence of her mentor, Raven Wilkinson, the first African American woman to dance for a major classical ballet company: “She changed my life in so many ways. She changed what I thought my purpose was. I was so focused on personal goals, and she opened my eyes to what it means to be in this position ... She shared these jewels of knowledge and wisdom through stories she would share about her life. She was so much fun. She could drink any grown man under the table.”

Copeland read excerpts from her latest book, “The Wind At My Back,” a tribute to Wilkinson.

“Raven taught me through example that every place I enter the whole race enters with me. It’s not just a burden and pressure. It offers the promise of possibility. Once we break a barrier or shatter a glass ceiling, we make it possible for other dreamers to enter the space that once excluded us. Raven’s teachings have given meaning to every plié I do and every performance I give. She showed me I dance for all those who came before us and the many who will hopefully come after us.

“In her own life she kept her head high, through the one-step-forward, two-steps-back dance of civil rights in our country. And in spite of all she endured, she never once succumbed to bitterness. Of all the gifts Raven gave me, one of the greatest was the gift of hope.”

On her writing: “I started journaling really young. So before dance became a tool for me to express myself, writing was. And I still have every single journal. I could go back and remember those feelings of what I was going through and processing. It has been very cathartic to me … It started out sharing my story, and now it’s really grown into sharing others’ stories. It’s one my favorite things to do at this point.”

The long lines of girls, mostly under 16, waiting to ask questions testified to her impact.

“I thought she was really good, very well-spoken,” said Julia Voelkl, a freshman at Mount St. Mary Academy in Kenmore and a “very amateur dancer” who came with her farther, Jeffrey Voelkl.

Voelkl, 14, who has known about Copeland “for a long time,” said the best part of the evening was Copeland’s answer to a young girl’s question about “favoritism” in dance classes.

“Her response was the most direct of any of her answers,” Voelkl said. “She said the experience of dance class is not all about you. It’s an important message for everyone to hear. Especially for kids who grow up in their own little world.”