Speaker 1: So you know, I was having dinner with a couple
Speaker 1: of producers for this show. We were talking about Baltimore's
Speaker 1: School of the Arts, where someone on our team worked
Speaker 1: for ten years, and she mentioned that Tupac did ballet,
Speaker 1: and we were just having this conversation about expanding the
Speaker 1: ideas of who can study something like classical ballet, and
Speaker 1: the fact that this is a world that has traditionally
Speaker 1: been sort of narrow in the way the types of
Speaker 1: people that will, you know, study ballet, and also the
Speaker 1: fact that it's hasn't really necessarily tried that hard to
Speaker 1: draw in young men, and certainly not young black men.
Speaker 1: And Misty Copeland is my guest today, and she has
Speaker 1: broken records from a young age and now she is
Speaker 1: just pushing for exactly that, for more diversity in dance
Speaker 1: with her foundation, the Misty Copeland Foundation. She's the first
Speaker 1: black principal ballerine at the American Ballet Theater, and I
Speaker 1: might add that it took them seventy years to get there.
Speaker 1: So lean in. I'm glad you're here from this one. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you everybody for being here today. I'm very, very
Speaker 1: excited to have our guest, Misty Copeland with us on
Speaker 1: the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. For those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know, get out from under the Rock. This
Speaker 1: is one of America's greatest ballerina is with an incredible
Speaker 1: history and an incredible story. You know, I'm always looking
Speaker 1: for connections. That's kind of like what kind of one
Speaker 1: of the essence of this particular podcast. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because recently I was speaking to Eli Manning, who was
Speaker 1: a great quarterback for the New York Giants, and uh,
Speaker 1: I was talking about how hard it is for me
Speaker 1: to picture doing what he does for a living. And
Speaker 1: you know, in my job, I'm constantly meeting with people
Speaker 1: and trying to do research and ride alongs and you know,
Speaker 1: trying to make me look like I could actually do
Speaker 1: a job that I have would have no idea how
Speaker 1: to do. So when I look at something like, you know,
Speaker 1: being a quarterback. But the strange thing is is that
Speaker 1: I did a dance movie and I can't imagine being
Speaker 1: a dancer. I mean, I just I just think about
Speaker 1: that like it's you know, the the the discipline and
Speaker 1: the and the and the dedication and the toll on
Speaker 1: your body and all those things in that really tiny
Speaker 1: little moment that I had to experience. It really kicked
Speaker 1: my ass. So I'm really curious about what the what
Speaker 1: the what the what the choice was, and what was
Speaker 1: the road that brought you to this life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love hearing people's experiences with dance, and so
Speaker 2: many people that have ventured into all different, you know,
Speaker 2: areas of whatever it is they choose to do, have
Speaker 2: some sort of connection with it, you know. I think
Speaker 2: it's such a an innate part of us as human beings.
Speaker 2: Like what we do, Like the first thing we do
Speaker 2: when we come out of the womb is we scream
Speaker 2: and we move our bodies.
Speaker 3: Like that's like how.
Speaker 2: We communicate before we have language, we move our bodies,
Speaker 2: and so it's it's always fascinating for me to hear
Speaker 2: people's experience with that. And it was something that I
Speaker 2: kind of clung onto from a very young age, growing
Speaker 2: up one of six children in a single parent home,
Speaker 2: a middle child, and already I was very shy and introverted,
Speaker 2: and so dance became this very natural outlet for me
Speaker 2: to find my voice. But ballet, I had no introduction
Speaker 2: to ballet at all.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2: I'd never heard classical music, and that wouldn't come into
Speaker 2: my life until I was thirteen years.
Speaker 1: Old, and it was, so, what were you listening to?
Speaker 4: Oh Man, Well, Mariah Carey was a huge, a huge
Speaker 4: inspiration for me because she her her debut album came
Speaker 4: out when I was like seven eight years old, and
Speaker 4: you know, it was the first time I felt.
Speaker 2: Really connected to someone and I felt like I could
Speaker 2: see myself there her being biracial, and I felt like
Speaker 2: I didn't have a lot of that representation. That's not
Speaker 2: something I could identify at that age. It would take
Speaker 2: me years to like really recognize why I was so
Speaker 2: fascinated by. I saw something that you recognized, but I
Speaker 2: saw something. But I listened to a lot of like
Speaker 2: pop and hip hop and R and B music, and
Speaker 2: I was creating to that. So when I was introduced
Speaker 2: to ballet, it was so foreign. It was at a
Speaker 2: boys and girls club at my community center that was
Speaker 2: like right across the street from the public school I
Speaker 2: was attending in San Pedro, California. And immediately the teacher
Speaker 2: who was offering this free ballet class at the boys
Speaker 2: and Girls club on the basketball court in the gym,
Speaker 2: she immediately saw talent she said, you're a prodigy, and
Speaker 2: I want to bring you into my school in full scholarship.
Speaker 3: And it was.
Speaker 2: Shocking to me, like I didn't really know what ballet.
Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't hear that. How old were you?
Speaker 3: I was thirteen?
Speaker 1: Thirteen, Okay, so thirteen seems kind of isn't it kind
Speaker 1: of late? Before ballet it is old. It has been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean similar to you know when you think
Speaker 2: about like figure skaters or gymnasts, you know there's, yeah,
Speaker 2: you start young, or there's this idea that you want
Speaker 2: to mold the body and really ingrain this language and
Speaker 2: technique before the body hits puberty to be blunt and
Speaker 2: just so that it's something that's really ingrained and become
Speaker 2: second nature. So by the time you become a teenager
Speaker 2: a young adult, you're not thinking about these things.
Speaker 3: You're starting to work on your artistry because.
Speaker 1: It's literally wanting to mold the actual body of the
Speaker 1: child into into whatever that thing happens.
Speaker 3: To be exactly.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think I was built for this.
Speaker 2: I think I was born with the body and my
Speaker 2: body was still agile and like really just kind of
Speaker 2: soaked up all of this information so quickly uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and I was called a prodigy.
Speaker 3: And it took some uh some.
Speaker 2: Kind of you know, like pushing for me to really
Speaker 2: want to commit to it because at the time, I
Speaker 2: was on the dance team at my middle school and
Speaker 2: that me was like so much fun. I was dancing
Speaker 2: to like George Michael and and I was like, I
Speaker 2: didn't really have any interest in this thing called, you know,
Speaker 2: classical ballet and classical music. But it wasn't until I
Speaker 2: left the boys and Girls club and was taken into
Speaker 2: the local ballet school that I really started to feel
Speaker 2: empowered and and like I was a part of something
Speaker 2: that was bigger than me, that I had a sense
Speaker 2: of purpose that I never experienced. And it was like
Speaker 2: this technique was everything I was searching for and needed,
Speaker 2: not not you know, not in terms of just like physicality,
Speaker 2: but emotionally and intellectually. Uh. There were so many things
Speaker 2: as a young person that I was not what's the
Speaker 2: word I'm looking for. I hadn't evolved in the way
Speaker 2: that I think I needed to at that point because
Speaker 2: of what I had been exposed to in my young life,
Speaker 2: and ballet kind of allowed me to like speed up
Speaker 2: and catch up to where I needed to be in
Speaker 2: so many ways, and that's like the beauty of art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I can one hundred percent, uh relate to
Speaker 1: one piece of that, and that is that I remember,
Speaker 1: I've actually talked about it on the show before, but
Speaker 1: that the first time that I got into an acting class.
Speaker 1: You know, I was probably about twelve or something, and
Speaker 1: you know, preteen, and you know, trying to be cool
Speaker 1: and trying to be tough and you know, trying to
Speaker 1: be a boy and do all that stuff. And it
Speaker 1: was so freeing to me because I could be vulnerable,
Speaker 1: I could be I found it, whether I even knew
Speaker 1: this word, I found it immediately therapeutic. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: just the creation of the part or the art. It
Speaker 1: was actually something that was whether I wasn't even cognizant
Speaker 1: of it, but I think I really needed it to
Speaker 1: help me get through these those years, which are you know,
Speaker 1: they are tough years in any situation. So it sounds
Speaker 1: like it gave you something that was pretty deep and
Speaker 1: profound on a personal level.
Speaker 2: It Yeah, yeah, I mean so much of what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I mean, it definitely was therapeutic. It also gave me
Speaker 2: this sense of stability and structure that I had never experienced.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of chaos and moving around in my
Speaker 2: childhood and to have something that I come to, I
Speaker 2: know it's going to be there every day, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It was like three point thirty my ballet class, and
Speaker 2: I knew exactly what we're going to do, the structure
Speaker 2: of the class. We're going to start with Pia's, go
Speaker 2: to Tandi's and Degachts and Fondi's, and you know, there's
Speaker 2: this consistency that's built that becomes almost like a meditation
Speaker 2: that allowed my body just to like release and relax.
Speaker 2: I was such a tense, nervous child because of that
Speaker 2: lack of stability and not knowing if there was going
Speaker 2: to be food on the table or a roof over
Speaker 2: our heads, and there was something that ballet just gave
Speaker 2: me this this sense of safety.
Speaker 1: Almost have you ever in retrospect questioned or or wondered
Speaker 1: about ballet in terms of those those things in terms
Speaker 1: of a child, you know, having such a rigorous schedule,
Speaker 1: having such a difficult, uh you know, physically difficult workload
Speaker 1: to accomplish every day, being in the spotlight, all those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, I mean it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: question of, you know, would you let your kid play football?
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, do you have you ever questioned
Speaker 1: any of those things as you've grown up or or
Speaker 1: lived your life or had this career.
Speaker 3: No, I really haven't.
Speaker 2: I feel I feel very fortunate because of the teachers
Speaker 2: that I've had. I know, those teachers that aren't nurturing
Speaker 2: and that perpetuate the trauma they've experienced, and I don't
Speaker 2: feel that I had that experience, which is so rare
Speaker 2: in the ballet world, you know. But I had an
Speaker 2: environment that was very nurturing and that allowed me to
Speaker 2: feel like, this is fun, this is something I want
Speaker 2: to return to.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed the challenge.
Speaker 2: And it just felt like beauty to me. It didn't
Speaker 2: feel like you know, I think people think of it
Speaker 2: often think of discipline a discipline in.
Speaker 3: Like a negative way.
Speaker 2: I would absolutely put my son in ballet, and I
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, this was the reason for starting
Speaker 2: the Misty Copland Foundation and starting our signature program. Be
Speaker 2: Bold was with this idea that when you remove all
Speaker 2: of the stuff at its core, ballet is so good.
Speaker 3: There's so many.
Speaker 2: Incredible tools that you can take into all areas of
Speaker 2: your life. You know, it's not just about becoming a
Speaker 2: professional dancer, you know, it's it's being exposed to the
Speaker 2: to the rigor, to the joy.
Speaker 3: To the music, to the discipline.
Speaker 2: You know, so many things that you get from being
Speaker 2: an athlete and an artist, and it's really combined in ballet.
Speaker 1: How old is your son?
Speaker 3: He is almost eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Eighteen months, Okay, so he's probably not dancing yet, although
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know he is. He is, Okay, so
Speaker 1: there you go.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 1: But this brings up a question that's always kind of
Speaker 1: amazed me, and you sort of alluded to it a
Speaker 1: little bit. Becare as you said that you were a natural.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously if you were that much of a
Speaker 1: prodigy at such a young age and such an accelerated,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of career. You know, I'll go to
Speaker 1: a of a wedding and look around and there'll be
Speaker 1: people and I just can't even understand how they could
Speaker 1: be so off about the way they move. I'm not
Speaker 1: even talking about like, I'm not even talking about choices
Speaker 1: of what kind of moves you're gonna do. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about literal, like no idea that there is a beat
Speaker 1: like no idea, not even talking about clapping on the
Speaker 1: one in the three. I'm talking about like you'd literally
Speaker 1: not hearing that there's any kind of rhythm to And
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's if that is a nature nurture thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I literally, I'm not I'm not a great dancer,
Speaker 1: but from the time I was a little kid, I
Speaker 1: could dance. Yeah, I mean I could. I'm I'm I'm not,
Speaker 1: I'm not skilled whatever, but I can definitely hear with
Speaker 1: the thing is supposed to be? What? What? What? What's
Speaker 1: your feeling about that. I've never spoken to a ballet
Speaker 1: dancer about that.
Speaker 3: So I'm a believer that anything is possible.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: I think that it may not look the way.
Speaker 2: That you you imagine it should look, but there's possibility
Speaker 2: in growth if someone is exposed to it and and taught.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've seen it. I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2: I've seen dancers that have grown immensely, like you know,
Speaker 2: with the right focus and intention and nurturing people that
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, I don't know if there's any
Speaker 2: potential there, and then you know, I don't know how
Speaker 2: many years later, but I do.
Speaker 3: I think it's possible, and you believe it.
Speaker 1: It can all be taught. It can all be taught.
Speaker 2: I don't know about all, but I think that everyone
Speaker 2: can learn to dance to like the best of their ability.
Speaker 2: But there can't there can be something learned and improvement made. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so everyone right now, get up, put on
Speaker 1: Mariah Carey, yes, and get to.
Speaker 2: You have if you have a body, If you have
Speaker 2: a body, you can dance.
Speaker 1: Well. Listen, I mean your heart beats in rhythm, right,
Speaker 1: your heart's beat in rhythm. It should it should be
Speaker 1: a natural it should be a natural thing. I was
Speaker 1: reading that. I was reading that you performed. Did you
Speaker 1: perform with Taylor Swift?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: That's wild, It was really Yeah, it was really an.
Speaker 2: Incredible experience to perform with someone not only that you know,
Speaker 2: talent and successful, but that's so gracious and grounded, that's
Speaker 2: always like in a different way, in a different way,
Speaker 2: in a different way. I mean, Prince I you know,
Speaker 2: that's one of the closest collaborations that I've had with
Speaker 2: another artist, and spent many many years working with him
Speaker 2: on and off, and he just had such a confidence
Speaker 2: and a way about him, and I think that a
Speaker 2: lot of people didn't realize was how much he gave
Speaker 2: back and mentored and was constantly looking for, you know,
Speaker 2: someone young and up and coming that he could kind
Speaker 2: of take under his wing. I didn't find this out
Speaker 2: until after he had passed, but that he had been
Speaker 2: following my career since I was about fourteen or fifteen
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 1: Wo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we ended.
Speaker 2: Up collaborating for the first time. I think when I
Speaker 2: was around twenty six twenty seven. He had been trying
Speaker 2: to contact me and had been following my career. But
Speaker 2: he's that way with a lot of young artists, and
Speaker 2: it's amazing to be able to have access to someone
Speaker 2: like him, with his experience and incredible gifts, and to
Speaker 2: get to be on stage and perform with and see
Speaker 2: it firsthandow and learn from a genius. So I I,
Speaker 2: you know, attribute a lot of my growth as an
Speaker 2: artist to the time that we spent working together.
Speaker 1: Did you have a mentor was that with mentorship important?
Speaker 1: I mean to you when you're when you're.
Speaker 3: Coming up, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: I Mean what's so interesting is that it's really built
Speaker 2: in to the to the ballet structure, you know, so
Speaker 2: much of the choreography and kind of notes and things
Speaker 2: like that aren't really documented in writing, so a lot
Speaker 2: of what we what we learn is pasted literally from
Speaker 2: one mouth to the next. And so there's this kind
Speaker 2: of built it in mentorship within the structure of how
Speaker 2: how a ballet company or school works. And so my
Speaker 2: first ballet teacher was definitely like that for me, and
Speaker 2: it just became something that was natural for me to
Speaker 2: kind of seek out.
Speaker 3: Or be open to the idea of guidance.
Speaker 2: Victoria Ral was probably one of the first people that
Speaker 2: really took me under her wing. Actress, soap opera actress,
Speaker 2: and she actually started out as a as a ballerina
Speaker 2: at American Ballet Theater and Uh, to have someone who
Speaker 2: has walked in those in my shoes, you know, as
Speaker 2: a black woman in a ballet company where you don't
Speaker 2: see anyone who looks like you like it was just
Speaker 2: meant a lot just to sit down and see her,
Speaker 2: hear the stories, have these conversations, and it's it's been
Speaker 2: such a big part of my journey is just having
Speaker 2: the mentors in my life.
Speaker 1: The first black prima ballerina in the history of ABT
Speaker 1: which American ballet theater, which is something amazing to be
Speaker 1: to be so proud of it only took them seventy
Speaker 1: five years, but but you were it, and that's quite
Speaker 1: an accomplishment. You know, you mentioned something which is fascinating
Speaker 1: to me, and that is that, well, there's two pieces
Speaker 1: of it. I mean back to I guess football is
Speaker 1: on my mind, but back to you know, athletes they
Speaker 1: use their bodies and they have to you know, sacrifice
Speaker 1: their bodies in those kinds of ways. But what's going
Speaker 1: on in their face? Maybe in baseball, but it is
Speaker 1: basically not the story. It's all about this machine, whereas
Speaker 1: in ballet that's a big, big piece. Is this lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, acting component, you know, the emotional component.
Speaker 1: It's not just you know, how well you hear the
Speaker 1: music of portraiteaus or how high you leap any of
Speaker 1: those things. And my question is you've performed, you know,
Speaker 1: countless ballets that are choreographed, and the choreography I don't
Speaker 1: even know if this is true, but it's written down correct,
Speaker 1: like there's an actual notation or there's a way to
Speaker 1: write it, like there is music of what the choreography is. Yes,
Speaker 1: but are you how to what extent can you make choices?
Speaker 1: So like the whole thing is is, you know, I
Speaker 1: get a characters written down a page, but then it's
Speaker 1: all about the choices that I make, and maybe the
Speaker 1: choices that I make between take one and Take four,
Speaker 1: or also that if I'm doing a play, the choices
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna make on a Tuesday night or a
Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon change all the time. So I'm wondering, when
Speaker 1: you're in the in the heat of it, how much
Speaker 1: are those choices you're allowed to make.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. So there is dance notation,
Speaker 2: but it's like such a rare art and we rarely
Speaker 2: use it. But again, like I was saying, it's literally
Speaker 2: just passed down from uh, from dancer to dancer and
Speaker 2: whoever is whoever owns the ballet and sets the ballet,
Speaker 2: so they literally sit you.
Speaker 1: In a room and dance from there.
Speaker 2: Well, the choreographer is long long dead, so with a
Speaker 2: lot of these ballets, so it's really passed on from
Speaker 2: like ballerina to like that's that you know, it was
Speaker 2: it was created on them and then it was passed
Speaker 2: on to another ballerina to another Valerias. It's literally handed
Speaker 2: down like that. But within that so you're you're taught
Speaker 2: exact choreography that you have to do. Like there's there's
Speaker 2: no real wiggle room within these, you know, ballets that
Speaker 2: were created in like the late eighteen hundreds. But when
Speaker 2: it comes to care, sure, like you do have a
Speaker 2: choice in how you approach certain things. Also depending on
Speaker 2: who's setting the ballet. So there are some some uh
Speaker 2: former dancers that will come and have kind of ownership
Speaker 2: over what the ballet will look like and and they
Speaker 2: don't really give you a lot of space. But for
Speaker 2: me personally, I have often done a lot of research
Speaker 2: outside of the ballet company and gotten coaching in terms
Speaker 2: of like theater acting outside of American Ballet theater, and
Speaker 2: will make choices in the moment on stage when it's
Speaker 2: too late for anyone to say anything to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like I like because there's no take too,
Speaker 1: there's no take. That's that's that's the way to be.
Speaker 1: I like I like that a lot. That's that's that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the Flowers movie. I mean, you're you
Speaker 1: have you I love me just say You're doing so
Speaker 1: many other things besides dancing films and books, and I
Speaker 1: think children's books as well, and yeah, you know, all
Speaker 1: kinds of the charitable work which we're going to get into.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious about the Flowers movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a great segue in terms of
Speaker 2: what we were just talking about, because what's been so
Speaker 2: fascinating stepping into this space. So I have a production
Speaker 2: company that I started with my best friend who is
Speaker 2: a former ballerino.
Speaker 3: We met at American Ballet.
Speaker 2: Theater and she transitioned after only a year of dancing
Speaker 2: professionally into writing and producing in television and that's what
Speaker 2: she's been doing for almost twenty years. And so we
Speaker 2: created this production company and.
Speaker 3: To transition into being creative.
Speaker 2: In this space, you know, I have so much I
Speaker 2: have to take much more initiative, and I have much
Speaker 2: more agency and creative power and freedom in a way that.
Speaker 3: Like I never experienced in my field.
Speaker 2: So with this, this is our first project that really
Speaker 2: has come to fruition.
Speaker 3: It's a short film.
Speaker 2: It's an art activism film all Flower and I produced
Speaker 2: it and came up with the concept with our executive
Speaker 2: producer and Nelson George and a star in it. And
Speaker 2: you know, it was just such a unique experience for
Speaker 2: me to be acting on camera without words. It's all
Speaker 2: through I guess my type, movement and dance and you know,
Speaker 2: the just the differences of what you need to do
Speaker 2: when you're in front of a camera versus you know,
Speaker 2: the Metropolitan Opera house and projecting to the top tier
Speaker 2: of the theater. So that that experience was challenging, but also,
Speaker 2: you know, I love to have like an artistic and
Speaker 2: physical challenge.
Speaker 3: So it was such a cool experience.
Speaker 2: But to use my art and to use my voice
Speaker 2: in my platform to highlight and focus on a community
Speaker 2: that at the time when we filmed it was during
Speaker 2: the pandemic, was you know, is really struggling Oakland, California,
Speaker 2: you know, gentrification in the housing crisis, and then homelessness
Speaker 2: and houselessness in that community. So to be able to
Speaker 2: shine a light, highlight the artists in that community and
Speaker 2: tell a story that I think is important.
Speaker 3: For them was just a really, really cool experience.
Speaker 1: I got to check that out. That sounds that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: I would love to see that.
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Speaker 1: Okay, well, I think this is a good spot to
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Karen Campbell. Karen is the executive
Speaker 1: director of Misty's Foundation, the Misty Copeland Foundation. Hi, Karen,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here today with us.
Speaker 3: Hi Kevin, thank you.
Speaker 1: Tell us about be bold.
Speaker 6: It stands for Ballet Explorations, Ballet offers leadership development and
Speaker 6: we're actually celebrating one year anniversary of this program and
Speaker 6: it's after school for children five to twelve years old,
Speaker 6: so there's a big age range to learn ballet an affordable,
Speaker 6: accessible and fun way. So we have twelve week cycles
Speaker 6: twice a week, one hour at each class, and it's
Speaker 6: two teaching artists and a musician. And Misty had the
Speaker 6: idea that she wanted it to be fun and for
Speaker 6: kids to learn in a less traditional way, still structured,
Speaker 6: but less traditional. So having African drums or bass guitar
Speaker 6: player or keyboards, you know, we do across the board
Speaker 6: like different instruments and they during the course of the class.
Speaker 6: What's so amazing, and this is Misty's vision, was that
Speaker 6: each class would start with community agreements, so the teaching
Speaker 6: artists and the children would talk about how they're what
Speaker 6: they want to have happen in the class, and what
Speaker 6: shouldn't happen, so things that give them agency. Are they
Speaker 6: feeling comfortable, Are they feeling welcomed? Are they feeling good?
Speaker 6: To continue during the course of the class, and they'll
Speaker 6: do a circle up in the beginning and talk about
Speaker 6: how they're feeling, like am I feeling cloudy today? Am
Speaker 6: I feeling sunny today? So that's how each class starts,
Speaker 6: and it's really important for a couple of reasons. One,
Speaker 6: kids during COVID had no opportunity for after school obviously
Speaker 6: or for often expressing their feelings, especially this you know
Speaker 6: community that we're working with, and then for them to
Speaker 6: be able to work with these teaching artists and musicians
Speaker 6: each the framework that we're we've created, we're calling it
Speaker 6: a framework, not a curriculum, because we're basically flying the
Speaker 6: plane as we're building it. And so we're working with
Speaker 6: a child developmental psychologist and a DEIA consultant to determine
Speaker 6: the best ways to work with these children who have
Speaker 6: had trauma during before COVID, certainly during and now afterwards,
Speaker 6: you know, finding a way to find their voice and
Speaker 6: to feel like they have something that gives them structure.
Speaker 6: To Misty's point, ballet has that ability to give structure
Speaker 6: and kind of life for them outside of their lives,
Speaker 6: the lives that they've had, and we know that after
Speaker 6: school programming in particular, you know, they often don't have
Speaker 6: that opportunity.
Speaker 1: There's so much about that that I love. First off,
Speaker 1: the fact that the Misty you talked about the experience
Speaker 1: that you had and going into this ballet class and
Speaker 1: trying to get a hold of the chaos in your
Speaker 1: life and feeling that. I also think that I feel
Speaker 1: like we don't even really have had We haven't even
Speaker 1: quite reckoned with what COVID must have been like for
Speaker 1: children and or can used to bay or whatever. My
Speaker 1: brother's got God right now, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I I think that the it is so so interesting
Speaker 1: to focus on on on that what that trauma is
Speaker 1: and and having to deal with it, but also not
Speaker 1: not just doing the dancing, but coming in and talking
Speaker 1: about you know what, what what's going on for you
Speaker 1: and what you want to do with that day. It's
Speaker 1: it's all great. And I love the idea that there's
Speaker 1: a live musician because you know, there's nothing you could
Speaker 1: put on the best recording of an African drama and
Speaker 1: it's just not going to be the same as the
Speaker 1: way it feels to see someone hitting that thing in
Speaker 1: the in the room. I mean, I think that's really
Speaker 1: that sounds great. How do you how do you where
Speaker 1: do you put these schools? How do you find the schools?
Speaker 1: How does it spread?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, we started because Misty started at Boys
Speaker 6: and Girls Club and has a relationship continuing relationship with them.
Speaker 6: We started at Boys and Girls clubs in the Bronx
Speaker 6: and in Harlem because they had the children they already
Speaker 6: had after school. They often had the facility like a
Speaker 6: dance studio that we could use and sometimes they even
Speaker 6: had teaching artists that we can employ as well. So
Speaker 6: that was the beginning of it and now in the
Speaker 6: spring we had about set We're in seven sites now
Speaker 6: this fall we're going to be in fourteen sites. So
Speaker 6: we've grown kind of quickly, been in a very organic
Speaker 6: and wonderful way, and through our network of we've been
Speaker 6: advisory council of dance professionals, dance teachers, people who we
Speaker 6: could go to in order to find these teaching artists,
Speaker 6: and that's been the most amazing thing to be able
Speaker 6: to grow it pretty quickly. One of the other things
Speaker 6: that we found was that we needed it in the spring,
Speaker 6: we found that we needed it to be more ballet focused,
Speaker 6: and Nisty really thought that was important. So the way
Speaker 6: the framework is set up now it's more ballet focused
Speaker 6: instead of movement, but it also continues to be impactful.
Speaker 6: So the developmental psychologist has done an impact study for
Speaker 6: us already so that we can see what we're doing
Speaker 6: right and what we need to improve. And one of
Speaker 6: the things that we need to we're hoping to improve
Speaker 6: is to get more boys involved in the program, which
Speaker 6: you can imagine at the beginning of each session, the
Speaker 6: program director, Cindy Folgar and I we go to each
Speaker 6: site and talk to the caregivers so we get some
Speaker 6: buy in so they understand what we're doing because often
Speaker 6: you can imagine like ballet, what does that mean to
Speaker 6: a lot of people in the community and certainly to boys.
Speaker 6: But we were really lucky that this fall in our training.
Speaker 6: We just did a three day training for our new
Speaker 6: teaching artist. We have six men of color, which is amazing,
Speaker 6: which means that we can have more outreach, hopefully for
Speaker 6: boys in the community and just a way to explain
Speaker 6: to them. When you're talking about Eli Manning, there's so
Speaker 6: many I was just talking to Alan Houston, who's former
Speaker 6: basketball player, one of his philanthropic people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't know if anyone everyone in your audience,
Speaker 6: Oh good, good, good, But but we were talking about
Speaker 6: how athletes, professional athletes really use ballet often and it's
Speaker 6: something that it's important for, you know, young kids to understand.
Speaker 6: So it's just a way to buy and for them
Speaker 6: to understand their There are avenues too out for outreach
Speaker 6: in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: So it's the music.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: That's great. I love that this is This is sounds
Speaker 1: like such a such a such a great program. Were
Speaker 1: you a dancer? How did you get involved? Did you
Speaker 1: know each other?
Speaker 6: No? We it's we feel like I feel like I've
Speaker 6: known her for whatever, and we've only known each other
Speaker 6: for about six months. I've only been working at the foundation.
Speaker 3: It's only been six months.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it feels like a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I was at Alvin Ailey before starting with Misty,
Speaker 6: so I was there for eight years, which is an
Speaker 6: amazing place. And actually my son when you talk about
Speaker 6: going a wedding, my son danced at a Ley before
Speaker 6: I worked there.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, wow, yeah, okay, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, really important for me to to
Speaker 2: find a team that was diverse, and it was really
Speaker 2: important that I had a CEO, you know, an executive
Speaker 2: director that was there was a woman of color, and
Speaker 2: to find Carr. I mean, everyone at Alvin a Lee
Speaker 2: comes up to me and they're like, why did you
Speaker 2: take her from us? And I'm like, sorry, guys, we're
Speaker 2: doing we're doing important work too. But you know, it's
Speaker 2: really important that the people that the children are seeing
Speaker 2: that they can see themselves through through the people that
Speaker 2: are in these leadership positions. And you know, in starting
Speaker 2: this program, it's like I wanted to take again what
Speaker 2: I was saying earlier, like ballet at its core and
Speaker 2: all the incredible elements of it and strip away all
Speaker 2: of the other stuff that has created, i think even
Speaker 2: just in like film and media and television, this negative
Speaker 2: connotation and these negative tropes about what it is and
Speaker 2: get back to what it can do for a human
Speaker 2: being and what it can do for a child and
Speaker 2: what it did for me. And so you know, it's
Speaker 2: important that we built a framework that made sense for
Speaker 2: these communities. So we're not bringing this traditional European art
Speaker 2: form into these black and brown communities, but we're creating
Speaker 2: it and really curating it for them. So it's music,
Speaker 2: it's musicians, it's teaching artists to look like them. It's
Speaker 2: talking about the history, the black and brown history that
Speaker 2: we're not taught in, that we don't see in ballet
Speaker 2: history books, so that these dancers can say like, oh,
Speaker 2: there have been people that look like me who do this.
Speaker 2: There have been men, there have been black men that
Speaker 2: have done this and have been successful. So all of
Speaker 2: those elements were really important, and in the end, it
Speaker 2: was like, we need to make this fun because again
Speaker 2: it's like this this idea that ballet is boring and
Speaker 2: ballet is slow, and getting back to like using this
Speaker 2: technique and bringing people together in a community through movement
Speaker 2: and making it fun for them.
Speaker 1: That's that's fantastic you mentioned, and I'm curious about this
Speaker 1: that you have learned or decided to slide the program
Speaker 1: a little bit away from just movement and more towards ballet.
Speaker 1: So I'm just curious about that specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, initially when we started out, we partnered
Speaker 2: up with an incredible organization called India, the National Dance
Speaker 2: Institute that was founded by former principal dancer of New
Speaker 2: York City Ballet, Jacques dem Bois, and he really created
Speaker 2: this incredible fun way of introducing dance to kids in
Speaker 2: school in this incredible fun way and an amazing structure.
Speaker 3: And so I went to them and I was like,
Speaker 3: how do we do this with ballet?
Speaker 2: And you know, in our in our first you know, pilot,
Speaker 2: it was definitely kind of thin on the ballet and
Speaker 2: much more about creating this fun movement environment.
Speaker 3: And you know, once.
Speaker 2: I saw it on several classes, I realized that we
Speaker 2: could still have that concept, but to insert a little
Speaker 2: bit more structure of the ballet technique so that if
Speaker 2: these dancers, any of them, wanted to go on and
Speaker 2: go into a school, a professional school, they would have
Speaker 2: a really legitimate ballet base to work from, so that
Speaker 2: it wasn't you know that they were saying, oh, I
Speaker 2: was in this ballet class, and their Misty copelit, and
Speaker 2: then they don't really have any any real language and
Speaker 2: idea of the technique. And and we've found that we
Speaker 2: can combine all of those things. It's amazing what we
Speaker 2: can fit in in an hour as well.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you both this, what is it about, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, reaching out two kids to give them uh uh,
Speaker 1: this kind of these kinds of outlets, to to mentor
Speaker 1: to give them an opportunity to do something outside of
Speaker 1: what what their their life or their environment. What is
Speaker 1: it that you think was in both of your upbringings
Speaker 1: that kind of steered you towards wanting to do this
Speaker 1: kind of work? Karen, Karen, I'll.
Speaker 6: Start Yeah, no, no, go ahead, Karen, I have said
Speaker 6: to Misty when I got this job. I have had
Speaker 6: very a varied career. I started out film production, and
Speaker 6: I actually like my first.
Speaker 3: Major movie was uh, Spike Lee's Malcolm X.
Speaker 6: And I was a production.
Speaker 1: Coordinator, So auspicious beginning.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, I worked a paramount for a few years before,
Speaker 6: but that was my first production cordator job.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: But to have the uh to have the experience of
Speaker 6: working in the film, and especially when I was in
Speaker 6: it at that time for women, it was very challenging
Speaker 6: and to be a person of color and then ending
Speaker 6: up going into fundraising and ultimately ending up with Nisty
Speaker 6: and this foundation.
Speaker 3: To me, it was it's it's a.
Speaker 6: Huge thing to be able to give children this idea
Speaker 6: that there are things that you can do outside of
Speaker 6: your world. We're going to show you what that looks like,
Speaker 6: and that we can really open up a world for
Speaker 6: them that they wouldn't have And I feel like that
Speaker 6: is so important. That's so meaningful when you go in
Speaker 6: today's classes and we haven't only been teaching them about dance,
Speaker 6: but we've started getting tickets for different things, for them
Speaker 6: to have the opportunities with their families to go see
Speaker 6: different performances and to get out in the wide, wider world,
Speaker 6: which I think for so many kids coming from where
Speaker 6: they come from, it's really important.
Speaker 1: Love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've been on the receiving end of
Speaker 2: that for you know, so much of my childhood in
Speaker 2: terms of like having teachers that invested in me and
Speaker 2: what it's done for me, and so it's it's like
Speaker 2: a no brainer. It's like, oh, I need to do this,
Speaker 2: Like I've had that experience and I've seen what it's
Speaker 2: done for me, and I feel like I've been given
Speaker 2: this opportunity and this platform in order to go back
Speaker 2: into these communities and give them what I've learned and
Speaker 2: what I've experienced. And yeah, it's just again, it's like
Speaker 2: a no brainer to be able to continue that cycle
Speaker 2: because of all the incredible things I've gained by being
Speaker 2: exposed to this art form and having incredible teachers and
Speaker 2: mentors along the way.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I love that, you know. It's funny. I
Speaker 1: hadn't even thought about this when I was getting ready
Speaker 1: for this episode. But when I was a kid, well
Speaker 1: it was probably about the probably about fourteen or fifteen,
Speaker 1: I got a summer scholarship to this thing called the
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Governor School for the Arts, where you auditioned and
Speaker 1: then you went out to this you know thing for
Speaker 1: a few weeks in the summer you could study art.
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the arts they had
Speaker 1: was they had music and they had acting, of course,
Speaker 1: I was there for the acting and one of the
Speaker 1: arts they had was ballet, and I made friends with
Speaker 1: this kid who was a ballet dancer. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think that summer he decided to become a ballet dancer.
Speaker 1: I don't think he'd ever done it. He was he
Speaker 1: was an athlete, and you know, and just like took
Speaker 1: to it. And he got a scholarship to the Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: Ballet and came back and lived in my house. My mom.
Speaker 1: My mom took him in and he lived in my
Speaker 1: house for that entire year while he studied at the
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Ballet. And I hadn't really thought about this, but
Speaker 1: you know, I think up to that point, I hadn't
Speaker 1: really thought of that. You know, I kind of thought
Speaker 1: of it as something that girls do basically, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, you know, that's that was that's kind
Speaker 1: of the thing. I mean, you were mentioning not only
Speaker 1: having uh men, but but men of color be there
Speaker 1: and and be visible and and and you know, be
Speaker 1: seen and with all that strength and grace and you know,
Speaker 1: and and it really did actually it was pretty it was.
Speaker 1: It kind of you know, stuck with me. And and
Speaker 1: I think it in some ways, you know, probably adjusted
Speaker 1: my ideas of what what a dance is or what
Speaker 1: a dancer is. I didn't know anything about ballet. I
Speaker 1: mean I to me, ballet was you know, just not
Speaker 1: something that was on my radar me. But but that's
Speaker 1: that's that's great that you guys are doing that. I
Speaker 1: think it sounds like a fantastic program. How can people
Speaker 1: learn about it or reach out or or or help
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is the moment for the
Speaker 1: call to action to go to.
Speaker 6: Our website and you can read more, learn a little
Speaker 6: more about or contact if you want to learn more.
Speaker 6: Come to see a class, Kevin.
Speaker 3: We love to have you come and see a class.
Speaker 1: I would love to come see a class. I really
Speaker 1: would honestly, Oh my.
Speaker 3: Gosh, we would love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Instagram as well, Missy Copeland Foundation, Right,
Speaker 2: that would be fun.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you ever had people come check
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have guests, so it would be awesome to
Speaker 2: yeah to.
Speaker 1: Have you all right, just don't expect me to show
Speaker 1: anybody any moves. That ship is sale.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Right down to all right, Thank you guys so much,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here. It's great talking with you.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for your time. It's been fantastic.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six
Speaker 1: Degrees with Kevin Bacon. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about the Misty Copeland Foundation and all the work that
Speaker 1: they are up to, head over to their website Misty
Speaker 1: Copelandfoundation dot org. Mistycopeland Foundation dot org. You define all
Speaker 1: the links in our show notes. If you like what
Speaker 1: you hear, make sure you subscribe to the show. To
Speaker 1: this show, tune into the rest of our episodes. I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna like them. You can find Six Degrees
Speaker 1: with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. I'll see you next time.