Elizabeth Marie Tallchief was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American to hold the rank, and is said to have revolutionized ballet.
Gelsey Kirkland is an American ballerina. She received early ballet training at the School of American Ballet. Kirkland joined the New York City Ballet in 1968 at age 15, at the invitation of George Balanchine. She was promoted to soloist in 1969, and principal in 1972. She went on to create leading roles in many of the great twentieth century ballets by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Antony Tudor, including Balanchine's revival of The Firebird, Robbins' Goldberg Variations, and Tudor's The Leaves are Fading.
Greta Hodgkinson O.Ont is an American-Canadian ballet dancer. She was a Principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada until she stepped down in 2020. She continues to perform freelance and is Artist-in-Residence of the National Ballet.
Christopher Myers is an American interdisciplinary artist, author and illustrator of children's books, and playwright. His wide-ranging practice—including tapestries, sculpture, stained glass lightboxes, theater and writing—is rooted in storytelling and artmaking as modes of transformation and cultural exchange. He explores contemporary hybrid cultures and identities resulting from histories of migration, globalization and colonization. Critics have noted his work's fluid movement between disciplines, image and language, sociopolitical research and mythology, and diverse materials. Shana Nys Dambrot of LA Weekly wrote, "Ideas about authorship, collaboration, cross-cultural pollination, intergenerational storytelling, mythology, literature and the oral histories of displaced communities all converge in his literal and metaphorical patchwork tableaux … [his] sharp, emotional and sometimes dark parables express it all in bright, jubilant patterns and saturated colors."
Misty Danielle Copeland is an American ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the three leading classical ballet companies in the United States. On June 30, 2015, Copeland became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in ABT's 75-year history.
Hildur Isabella Boylston is an American ballet dancer who is currently a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT).
Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina is an autobiography by Misty Copeland, written with Charisse Jones, published March 4, 2014 by Aladdin. In the book, Copeland discusses her history toward becoming the only African-American soloist with the American Ballet Theatre following a life in which she and her family lived in poverty.
Yasmine Naghdi is a British ballerina and a principal ballerina of The Royal Ballet, London. She joined The Royal Ballet's corps de ballet in April 2010 when she was still a graduate student at The Royal Ballet School. She made her way up through all the five ranks of The Royal Ballet and reached the highest rank aged 24, when she was promoted to principal ballerina.
A Ballerina's Tale is a 2015 documentary film revolving around the career of Misty Copeland, who serves as the narrator of the film as well as its subject. The film premiered on April 19, 2015, at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was released through video on demand on October 13, 2015, prior to opening in a limited release on October 14, 2015, by Sundance Selects. A version of it, which is available on the PBS website, was also aired by PBS stations beginning in February 2016. The film received mostly positive reviews.
Anne Raven Wilkinson was an American dancer who is credited with having been the first African-American woman to dance for a major classical ballet company. Wilkinson broke the color barrier in 1955 when she signed a contract to dance full-time with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She was promoted to soloist during her second season with the troupe, and remained with the company for six years. Wilkinson later became a mentor to American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland.
Stella Abrera is a Filipina-American ballet dancer. She danced as a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre until her retirement in 2020, and is the company's first Filipina principal ballerina. She then became the artistic director of the dance cultural park Kaatsbaan, and in September 2022 took up the role of artistic director of the ABT JKO School. following Cynthia Harvey's departure in May.
Stephanie Kurlow is an Australian dancer and ballet student often credited as being the world's first Hijabi Ballerina.
Precious Adams is an American ballet dancer who currently dances with the English National Ballet.
Stephanie Renee Dabney was an American dancer who performed as a prima ballerina with Dance Theatre of Harlem from 1979 through 1994. Dabney is best known for her performances in John Taras' The Firebird, which she performed all over the world, as well as at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Skylar Paley Brandt is an American ballet dancer who is currently a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.
Alicia Graf Mack is an American dancer and teacher. She danced with Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Webster University, and University of Houston. As the youngest and first Black Dean and Director of the Dance Division at Juilliard School, a position she attained in 2018, she has been credited with "remaking Juilliard Dance."
Black women have been traditionally underrepresented in ballet. In the 15th and 16th centuries, ballet began in Italian Renaissance courts, where it was largely dominated and influenced by the aristocracy. Ballet later spread to France and was developed under Louis XIV. After the first professional theatrical ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet, was established in 1669, ballet spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Ballet eventually arrived in the United States, and by 1933, the San Francisco Ballet, the first professional ballet company in the United States, was founded.
Charlotte Nebres is an American pre-professional ballet dancer. In 2019, at eleven years old, she become the first Black ballerina to dance the role of Marie in New York City Ballet's production of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker. Later that year, she wrote Charlotte and The Nutcracker, a children's book about her experience.
Discrimination in dance refers to unequal treatment of performance artists based on white dominant culturally desired symmetry and unified lines.
