Misty Copeland

In 2015, a documentary film was made on her life, titled, ‘A Ballerina’s Tale’, with Copeland providing the narration. The film premiered at the 2015 ‘Tribeca Film Festival’ on April 19.

She has written three books till date, including two autobiographies. She published her memoir, ‘Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina’, co-authored with journalist Charisse Jones, on March 4, 2014. Her second work as an author, ‘Firebird’, published on September 4, is a picture book with illustrations done by Christopher Myers. She and Jones worked together again on her second autobiographical work ‘Ballerina Body’, which was published on March 21, 2017.

Misty Copeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, on September 10, 1982, to Doug Copeland and Sylvia DelaCerna. She is of German, African American, and Italian descent. She has two brothers, Doulas Jr., and Christopher, a sister, Erica, one half-brother, Cameron, and one half-sister, Lindsay.

Her mother married four times, Misty’s father being her second husband. At three, she moved to California and that would be the last time she would see father for the next twenty years. She was raised in the San Pedro community in Los Angeles, California. Amid financial instability, Misty grew up moving from house to house of her mother’s various friends, boyfriends, and husbands.

Her interest in ballet began to bloom when she joined the ‘Dana Middle School’ drill team, and was promoted to captain, like her sister Erica before her. Seeing her inherent poise and talent, her coach Elizabeth Cantine referred her to Cynthia Bradley, who hosted a free ballet class once a week at the local ‘Boys and Girls Club’.

Misty Copeland started attending the free class and a few weeks into it, Bradley asked her to join her local small ballet school, ‘San Pedro Dance Center’. After initially declining the offer, she joined the class at 13 years of age with her mother’s permission. Three months later, she was made en pointe. Only eight months into her lessons, she enthralled her audience with her performance as Clara in the school production of ‘The Nutcracker’.

Copeland started to stay with Bradley and her family after DelaCerna told her that she would have to quit ballet and Bradley convinced her mother to let Copeland live out of her household and continue training.

At the completion of her summer workshop at the ‘San Francisco Ballet School’ in 1998, she was offered a full-time student scholarship at the institution but she declined.

Due to the constant arguments with her mother about dancing and the Bradleys every time she returned home, Copeland filed emancipation papers to secure her legal independence from her mother. When she was informed about the petition, DelaCerna filed restraining orders against the Bradleys. The hearing took place ‘Los Angeles County Superior Court’. Eventually both cases were withdrawn and Copeland returned home.

She went back to the ‘San Pedro High School’ and graduated in 2000. Her mother also found her a new teacher in former ABT dancer Diane Lauridsen.

Misty Copeland performed alongside singer Prince at the ‘Madison Square Garden’ to his song ‘The Beautiful One’ in December 2010. They had earlier collaborated for the music video of his cover of ‘Tommy James and the Shondells’ song ‘Crimson and Clover’.

In April 2015, Copeland danced as Odette/Odile in ‘Swan Lake’ with ‘The Washington Ballet’ at the ‘Eisenhower Theater’ in the ‘John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’.

She debuted on the Broadway portraying the character Ivy Smith in a production of ‘On the Town’ in 2015.