Misty Copeland’s Final Bow

Dance has been Misty Copeland’s life for 30 years, including the past 25 she spent with American Ballet Theatre. She was the kind of teenage ballerina whom adults described as a “prodigy.” When, in 2015, she became the first Black woman to be promoted to principal dancer at ABT, the media applied a new label: “trailblazer.” She knew her success was never going to be about just her. She rose to the occasion, speaking about the need for more diversity in ballet. To an outside observer, her leaps and fouettés seemed untroubled by the responsibility foisted upon her. By the end of 2019, though, she had doubts: Was performing really the best way for her to change anything? In the time the pandemic afforded her, she decided to step away from ABT. “I always thought, I don’t want to be that dancer in my 50s who’s holding on while all these young dancers are waiting for this opportunity,” she says. “I want to bow out when I’m still in my prime and keep it moving.”

While Copeland showed signs of doing just that — founding a dance-education nonprofit, having a child, developing film and TV projects — ABT begged her for one last performance. “A couple times a year, I would get a call that was like, ‘Misty, people want to see you!’” she says. Ultimately, she agreed. On October 22, she did her final show with ABT in a special program for the company’s fall gala, dancing in three distinct pieces that she and ABT’s artistic director, Susan Jaffe, selected to represent her career. It had been nearly six years since she’d performed, and it took months of training for the 43-year-old to feel ready for this one night — a testament to the awesome strength ballet requires. She was also dealing with a hip injury that caused her so much pain she and one of her dance partners had to alter their choreography so she could get through it. Afterward, she confesses, she felt “like I got hit by a truck.” But to the audience that clapped and wept through the extended, flower-filled curtain call, Copeland made it look easy. Some things never change.