Black Ballerina

[Classical music playing] [Classical music playing] Woman: Oh, good.

Have you ever seen "Swan Lake" before?

This is sort of like the ballet version of a famous Beyonce song.

You know, everybody knows the--the famous Beyonce song.

They can all sing along, right?

This is a very famous ballet.

[Music continues] Well, for me, there's something missing.

For me, the music is gorgeous.

The choreography is beautiful.

Like you said, it's soft, and it's frilly, and it's pretty, but there's something missing.

[Music continues] [Classical music playing] Woman: Ballet, you fall in love with it.

Your body falls in love with it.

Different woman: Ballet is such a challenge, and I love the challenge.

When I'm on stage, it's like no one can stop me.

Different woman: It's like singing with your body.

Different woman: I knew that if I kept dancing, I could be like the ballerina on the stage.

Woman: Ballet, it's a white world.

Of the ballet company, the corps has to be lily white, and the soloist has to have what they prescribe as being the ballet body... so it hasn't changed.

Woman: I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and, um, the first ballet I ever went to see, I was 3 years old, and it was Dance Theatre of Harlem.

I sat on my mom's lap, and I, like, put my hands on the back of the chair in front of me, and I was just looking up, and, like, I didn't blink the entire time for, like, however long, you know, an hour and a half, I was just so, like, into the show.

I knew that if I kept dancing, I could be like the ballerina on the stage.

The Dance Theatre of Harlem company came back to Shreveport in 2002.

That was my senior year of high school.

I actually took company class with them, and I was so nervous, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, all these beautiful black ballerinas."

Afterwards, they asked me if I would like to come to their summer intensive for 6 weeks in New York City, and I said, "Well, of course"... Mitchell: And 1, 2.

Come on.

Get that stomach in.

1--that's it.

5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 1 and 2 and... Murphy: and then a year later, Mr. Mitchell asked me to be in the company.

Even after I was accepted into the ensemble, um, I told my parents, and they were like, "You are not moving to New York City.

You know, you're going to college," so I ended up actually going there for two weeks because they didn't want me to go to New York.

[Piano playing] As young, African American dancers, sometimes they're discouraged from even trying ballet because it's not the norm.

People would rather push you towards something that's gonna make money or that's gonna, you know, give you fame.

They will always tell someone to go out for the NFL because it's gonna make you millions of dollars.

They're not gonna tell you, "Oh, go, you know, train to be a ballerina and struggle all your life."

Woman: The parents don't go to ballet.

They don't see it as an opportunity for the youngsters, and I think if they saw more of themselves on stage, more of them in ballet companies, more of them on television doing just that, they would be encouraged, but I think they get deterred because of the lack of opportunity.

And so I cried every single day, and I called home, and I was like, "I don't want to be here.

I want to go to New York," and so they finally came and got me and let me come up here, and they were like, "You get one chance"--ha!-- and that's all I needed.

I mean, I used to love when people told me I couldn't do something.

I'd be like, "Let me show you because I'm gonna do it."

[Classical music playing] Woman: My mother works for the school district in Fulton County in Georgia, so every now and then, she would get, like, free comp tickets to come see, like, a dress rehearsal of Atlanta Ballet.

I saw Atlanta Festival Ballet perform "The Nutcracker," and there was this dancer named Keila Harvey.

She was, like, the first black ballerina I ever saw, and she did Dewdrop, and I was just like, "Oh, I want to do ballet."

[Classical music playing] When I was a student at Atlanta Festival Ballet my senior year in high school, I got to be Clara for "The Nutcracker"... and there was this unfortunate incident where me and another girl were supposed to be Clara who was Caucasian, and there was this big thing about her not wanting to share a costume with me.

Oh, that was, like, the moment where I was like, "Really?

I haven't even left home yet, and this is what I'm getting?"

That was the first big eye-opener that I had as a dancer.

It really wasn't her reaction that made it disheartening.

It was that the company didn't stand up for me.

[Classical music playing] Woman: I was a avid movie fan.

I was a huge fan of Cyd Charisse, and I looked at what she was doing, and in my little, 9-year-old, 10-year-old self, I thought, "Oh, I can do that," so I took a friend, uh, and we went to register at all of the downtown schools.

I didn't know at the time that the schools were not open to me.

God bless my mother.

She didn't tell me the reality because it would've been very upsetting to a little 10-year-old to realize that you're in a city like Philadelphia and you have limited opportunity.

At that time, Philadelphia had-- in the junior high and high schools had what they called clubs.

I was in the Ballet Club.

[Classical music playing] When I graduated from high school, I was determined that I was going to go to New York and dance.

Leap forward a number of years, and I go to School of American Ballet.

You had to audition.

Thank goodness I was one of the ones to get in.

[Classical music playing] A company was formed in New York originally called Ballet Americana.

We rehearsed for about a year before we went to--to Britain, and, oh, it was wonderful.

We had amazing choreography.

We had wonderful costumes and sets.

We went over on the, uh-- the France, the Ile de France, and, oh, that was so glamorous because at that time, you dressed for dinner.

Uh, we were sort of little celebrities because we were a ballet company.

They changed our name from Ballet Americana to New York Negro Ballet because they wanted the audiences to think we were exotic, and if we weren't just another American company, uh, they want it to be clear.

We did a lot of modern things.

The bluebird pas de deux was something that was familiar, and when we hit that stage, nobody ran screaming out of the theater and said, "Oh, God, they shouldn't be doing this," or-- You know, it was, um-- it was wonderful, warm applause and acceptance.

[Classical music playing] When I came back to New York, I took classes with-- with what were principal dancers from New York City Ballet.

I was in the front line in the middle in every class.

Nobody was being kind to me because ballet classes, people are not being kind to you.

No teacher I've ever studied with put people without ability on the front line.

I was certainly up to the work.

Um, there's-- You know, when you're raised to believe the harder you work, uh, you know, you're skilled at what you do, you're educated at it, uh, you should have--have a shot.

There was nothing.

Uh, went to auditions.

Um, it didn't matter.

I would understand if you don't have the quality.

Uh, you don't have to like every dancer, uh, if you don't have the ability, but when you're not given the opportunities simply skin deep, that's a terrible problem.

[Birds chirping] [Car horn honks] Woman: I was, uh, born in New York City, in Manhattan, and I grew up in Harlem.

We lived up in the Dunbar Apartments.

My mother was a stay-at-home mom.

She took me to concerts and ballet and museums.

She took me to see the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

[Classical music playing] The light just comes into a glow on the gold curtain, and the conductor picks up his baton, and a rousing mazurka of "Coppelia" starts, and I started crying because it was so exciting.

It was so wonderful, and that-- it was overwhelming.

Then on my ninth birthday, it was a--a present, my first ballet lesson.

Everyone wanted to dance in Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

They had every year a huge audition.

Everybody came.

I was never accepted.

One of the young men in the school who had been a friend took me aside, and he said-- Um, the next audition was coming up.

He said, "Don't-- don't take that audition "because you just will never get in the Ballet Russe.

They can't take you in that company because they travel."

[Classical music playing] I was extremely disappointed because I realized this thing has come up now.

I'm really hitting the truth, and I said to myself, "Well, you certainly aren't gonna get anywhere "if you sit down and feel sorry about--about the situation "or feel sorry for yourself.

You have to keep going," so I got my toe shoes and my little purse and my little ballet skirt and went off to the audition, anyway.

Serge Denham, the director, he stood up with his-- He said, "How would you like to become a member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo?"

[Classical music playing] and it was the third year that I actually got the waltz in "Les Sylphides."

I think, uh, I went two years with no incident in traveling at all.

The South is getting uptight.

You know, in '54, they desegregated the schools.

Well, the reaction to all that was growing and coming to a crisis head.

Then I ended up in Montgomery, Alabama, one time, and, I mean, I was going-- going to dance, and-- and the bus, uh, comes into the town, and there are all these sheets and hoods, well, all over the street, and, well, Montgomery, Alabama, was in the midst of a Ku Klux Klan convention, and the Ballet Russe bus comes in, so we get to the hotel.

I just went into the dining room, and when I went in the room, I saw all these people, little families and children and the people being so attentive to their little children and hugging them and seeing their food was right, and I thought, "Oh, is this just like a holiday, these-- Isn't this nice?"

and I pulled out the chair to sit down at the table, and on the empty chair next to me was all the hoods and gowns, so it was this-- These were all Klan people in the dining room, and I go, "Oh, my goodness, all these lovely, little children."

I thought--I felt so sad that, you know-- just to realize that all that love they were giving them, but they're spreading the hatred to them, you know?

[Classical music playing] Uh, somebody came to me and said, "Raven, don't go to the theater.

"Go back up in the room and shut the door "and lock it and stay in there.

Don't open the door for anybody," so I went back upstairs, and the company went and had the performance, and that night as the dusk came in, I was-- uh, there was a window out that looked out kind of like a little ravine, and I saw-- first and last and only time in my life I saw the-- them burning the cross.

They decided I should go back to New York because they didn't know what was gonna happen.

Here, I had been in the Ballet Russe all these years cultivating the classical meme and having solos, and-- and suddenly someone came to me and said, "You've gone as far as you can in the company, and, uh, after all," they said, we can't have a black white swan."

She said, "Why don't you get out and get a little group together and do African dance?"

Well, that's what you don't tell people who've striven just to do what they do if they want to be a classical dancer and you spend so much time and effort because the whole thing was, "Prove it.

You--these people can't dance classical dance."

I was just so tired, I could feel it.

I just felt exhausted physically and emotionally, so I said, "I just have to stop for a while."

Fabre: I graduated from UArts in 2012 with a degree in Dance Education with a major in Ballet... and I went to so many auditions, I couldn't even tell you.

At one p--and they're all so expensive.

I had to call family members a couple of times to ask if they--if I could have some money to go to auditions.

My YoungArts number is 08002569/101.

The title of my piece is "Dream."

[Piano playing] Murphy: The training is very expensive.

Um, my parents sacrificed a lot to keep me in dance.

I'm so grateful that my parents were able to do that, but everybody's parents aren't able to afford that.

Fabre: Didn't get anything, so I had to go back home... had, like, a regular person's job-- I was a waitress--you know, to even out and pay--help pay for those, uh, student loans.

I kind of lost focus when I went home this past year.

You know, I was getting out of shape.

I knew after that experience in high school that color was going to be an issue.

See, I didn't want anything else to be a issue, so I stopped eating red meat because I didn't want weight to be an issue.

I didn't want them to be like, "Well, not only are you black, but you're big, too, so--" Well, I'm at Joffrey, summer intern, so I'm in New York right now being a chaperone in the dorms, so one of the perks is being able to take classes when we're available... and you just see everyone else get a job, and you're like, "Why not me?"

I've also heard it's the politics.

Sometimes it's not the director that makes the decision.

It's the board, and the board is always full of people who have only seen ballet in one specific color, so they're not ready.

Woman: There's a visual element to ballet that makes people stop and makes people think, "Well, I don't know if it'll look like ballet "if it doesn't look like 12 identical swans "with exactly the same bodies and the same skin tone the same hair tone standing in exactly the same position"... Man: We are doing things the same way they've been done for a hundred-- hundreds of years, and I think the classic works need to be performed in that--that same way with that same honor to the tradition.

Johnson: and, actually, the identicalness of ballet is not that you literally look the same, but that you embody the same intention, the same spirit, the same idea, the same movement.

Fabre: You can only-- you can only do so much before you're just like, "Whatever.

"I guess I'll go back to school or do something else," because I don't want to do modern.

I've had teachers in the past like, "Well, have you ever thought going to Alvin Ailey?"

and I'm like, "Heh, no."

Love Alvin Ailey, respect them, seen plenty of their works, but I don't want to be a modern dancer, and I felt like they suggested that company just because they were a black company.

Pretty sure if I wanted to do modern, there would've been some place somewhere that I would've ended up.

I refuse to be pushed over there.

I'd rather stop dancing than be forced to do modern.

I would rather put on pointe shoes than be barefoot.

Brown: And when the Dance Theater of Harlem disbanded, all those wonderful dancers couldn't find work because they still weren't hiring black ballet dancers.

Murphy: When, um, the company went in hiatus in 2004, I actually did auditions for other companies, and there were a lot of companies who I felt, you know, wanted to hire me, but I had to start all the way from the beginning again, and I just didn't really want to do that because I had been working so hard, and I felt like I was at a level where I shouldn't have to, like, start over as an apprentice or in the second company.

Browne: When I see those gorgeous, young women from--from Dance Theater of Harlem, they could meld right into that corps de ballet because they already have Balanchine ballets under their belt.

They have been doing all of those ballets.

I mean, they have all the aesthetics except color.

Brown: And then they were hiring-- If they hired anybody black, a woman, they had to be so fair.

Johnson: Then you have people at auditions telling you, "You're not good enough.

You don't have the right body type."

By then, you're saying those things to yourself sometimes.

We're still living with Balanchine's idea-- a very small head, a--a--a small trunk, and really long legs and looking like, um, a straw... Murphy: They say ballerinas don't have large busts.

They don't have large glutes.

They don't have large legs.

You know, there are so many things that you're "not supposed to have"--quote, unquote-- when you're a ballet dancer.

Johnson: but, you know, when you look at that generation of dancers, that--that really inspired people, who really made people love this art form, they were short, they had flat feet, but they had to do a certain kind of work to make this happen.

That work is where the art is.

Wilkinson: I rested for a while, and then I started auditioning.

I went to Ballet Theatre and auditioned.

I spoke to Mr. Balanchine, and I went to the Metropolitan Opera and auditioned.

I know I was tired and disappointed, especially that I couldn't get something else.

Women singularly have this problem more than African American male classical dancers.

[Classical music playing] Brown: If you look at all the ballet companies across the country, when they had one, it's usually a male, you know, the exotic-looking, special male.

Wilkinson: There's something about the woman that is-- makes more difficulties more than men.

I wonder if it's the sense of the classes and being within the female dancer the sense of the transcendence of gravity and the spirit of woman, your Giselle, your Sylph, everything, the white thing, and they just feel that that's counter to an African American, who would represent something more vitally part of the realities of life and, you know, the--the earth, the Mother Earth kind of thing.

Wilkinson: A dancer who was a part of the National Ballet of Holland, he was one of their top dancers.

He was an African-American dancer who we never saw.

His name was Sylvester Campbell.

He called me and he said, "I would like to dance with you.

Why don't you come to Holland?"

And I was on my way to Holland in the end of August and joined National Ballet of Holland and had a wonderful experience, and I had nice roles in these ballets.

But I decided I loved America, too, so, I thought, well, maybe I'll go back and see.

But you want the best of both, you know.

That's human nature.

And I just-- something deeply in me is American, and I missed a lot of the way, even though we're like plates in earthquakes rubbing up against each other, there's a certain sense of the energy.

It's very sad that you have to leave your home.

I just never got another job in the United States as a dancer.

You can look at case-by-case examples of African-American dancers that have made it and have succeeded.

How did they find that training at a young age?

They aren't all from New York.

They're not all--you know, they're not all just going into the School of American Ballet or another wonderful school in New York.

So, they--they obviously sought it out or had good training early on in their lives available to them.

I keep coming back to exposure as being just so critical.

Wilkinson: When you are a young dancer, you do look to things that inspire you, and the very fact of someone going before who's accomplished, I think it should be said and talked about that there was back in 1955 an African-American woman who had been a ballerina.

Now, she is someone I loved.

[Classical music playing] Because I remember seeing her dance and I remember being so impressed with how she came out on stage.

That regality of how she stood on stage.

She could jump.

She had control.

She had strength.

She was absolutely lovely, and I missed her so much when she left.

Now, why--why isn't a dancer like that?

The first soloist.

Oh, my God.

Now, she's gorgeous.

[Classical music playing] She was a dancer that I think-- I feel understood style and artistry.

She truly worked on these things as an artist.

She had these long legs.

She had the arms and she brought the arms up, and she just slid that foot in second.

That beautiful arch and, oh, my goodness, I almost fainted.

I said, this is some-- and this is the thing.

Then you're so scared they're not gonna be able to make it, and you see that talent there.

[Classical music playing] It's Laurie Anderson.

See, now, these people, I didn't know them personally, but she was the top of the Houston Ballet.

She did--she became one of their ballerinas.

[Classical music playing] We were discussing Debbie Austin, and somebody said, well, she got discouraged about, and I said, "Why did she get discouraged?

"Why do any of them get discouraged if they're talented--" and then I thought to myself, yeah, I got discouraged and I left.

You know, you forget.

I mean, Misty, everyone is crazy about Misty Copeland.

[Classical music playing] And here she is now finally doing these great ballerina roles, you know.

[Classical music playing] And you have to have the roles in order to grow artistically.

Going all the way down.

Grand plie, 2, 3, 4.

Coming up, 2, 3.

Open to the second on fourth.

Same thing, second, fourth, fifth position.

Imagine that it's... Browne: Alvin Ailey had invited me to run his scholarship program.

So, I knew I had that job.

I purely loved every day that I spent in the classes.

3 and...4.

And we have [speaking French].

And... [Classical music playing] Browne: I came by and visited Joan's school and we had a little chat, and she hired me to teach her advanced kids.

That was 38 years ago.

Put them together.

There you go.

2 and a 3 and a 4 [speaking French].

OK, I want to see that locked in position.

Here we go.

One.

[Classical music playing] Well, you know, I started my dance school in 1960 because I thought maybe I could give someone else the opportunity I didn't get.

I started bringing in modern dance teachers so that the kids would not only just know ballet but they would know all dance, because I knew that they had to be able to do it all.

[Classical music playing] This is like a sculpture [indistinct], so we have to be really clear that the shape is clear.

Woman: Joan Myers Brown understands the importance, especially having a predominantly African-American company, that we are looked at with a different kind of microscope.

She wants people to see in her company that we can do it and do it well.

[Classical music playing] Bears-Bailey: Rosita, you want to play directly center.

Exactly.

[Classical music playing] Bears-Bailey: Delores Browne's role is just that of the continuum of Miss Browne.

To make sure that we are the best artists we can be.

You can't walk in her class un-pulled together.

Without your shoes, without proper, you know, your toe shoes sewn correctly.

It just is because she knows that people are looking at that and they will size you up by that.

When you leave her class, you end up being educated in the essence of what ballet represents.

Browne: Squat.

Make sure you feel that pressure in your thighs.

There you are.

Good, good.

Don't drop at the last moment, though.

[Indistinct] all the way.

Stop there.

Right.

All the way.

Browne: I'm very torn with my advice to anybody of color who wants to be in the ballet.

We are way behind in just our whole attitude about ballet and people of color.

We are in the Dark Ages.

I still can't fathom why the major companies are having that as a problem.

[Classical music playing] So, I don't go to New York City Ballet anymore, and I don't go to American Ballet Theatre anymore.

The last time I went to New York City Ballet, I went because I wanted to see "Dancers at a Gathering," which is one of my favorite Jerome Robbins ballets.

And I said, this was--this is my last performance that I'm witnessing this.

[Classical music playing] When I saw Dance Theater do "Serenade," I couldn't applaud at the end right away because it was so breathtakingly beautiful.

Now, why could those girls not then join the corps de ballet of New York City Ballet?

[Classical music playing] Don't you think for a minute that if there were people of color in numbers, not tokens, in numbers, on that stage, that there wouldn't be bottoms in those seats?

Let's be vulgar.

Let's think dollars and cents.

You have an untapped audience.

[Classical music playing] Fabre: When we went to go see ABT perform "Swan Lake, there were a lot more people of different backgrounds there, and I think that's account to Misty Copeland and what she's brought to ABT.

[Classical music playing] Browne: Open the door, they'll walk right in.

Beautifully walk in, and it'll be rich, and it'll look like America.

And I don't want to see any more tokens.

I want to see numbers now.

And I hope somebody listens to me at some point.

I doubt it, but I hope they do.

Fabre: I am a flight attendant.

I am flying the friendly skies.

I was dancing with a small dance company, but that's not where I wanted to be, and I just felt like every time I was trying to, like, make some moves, I was getting "No."

I was just like, if I have to go back to do this small company and then work as a waitress all day and all night, it's not gonna work out, I wouldn't be--I wouldn't last.

[Classical music playing] And then a friend suggested flight attendant, and I was sitting there waitressing and, you know, dancing, and I was like, all right, well, let's see what happens.

I think I'm still making the choice, because every now and then, I struggle with the thought of going back into dance.

I think it came to the point where I was just mad and like-- I was like, "I don't want to be here anymore.

I just want to move on, like, going to something else."

I don't want to hate dance.

Kaiser: It's a very, very competitive field, especially for women.

There's just no two ways about that.

Many young girls study ballet and there just aren't that many jobs in this country.

Johnson: Ballet is an exclusive art form.

You know, 9/10 of the people in a classroom are not gonna be--regardless-- a classroom of white dancers.

9/10 of them are not gonna be dancers.

You know, you've got to look right, you've got to feel right, you've got to have the ability to count and stand in line, and you've got to have something to express.

I mean, there's a lot of requirements there.

Fabre: Sometimes you're just not what they're looking for.

So, then every company, before I went to the audition, I would look and see how many African-American women they had already hired.

If they already had one, I already knew I wasn't getting it.

Even the...the people who are doing the auditions.

I feel like they look at you and look harder.

You just got to--you got to build them up with water.

I don't know if I would call it regret, but I do have some... some sadness for not dancing anymore.

Um...

I can't--sometimes I try to ask myself, did I try really, really hard or did I just give up?

[Sniffles] And I still can't honestly answer that question to myself, because I don't know.

I mean, I went to auditions and I tried and I made all these sacrifices in different ways to try to be a...a dancer, but either it just didn't work or either I just wasn't trying hard enough and I--I don't know.

I don't know which one it was.

So...[sniffles] Murphy: When the school open back up, the ensemble came back and Mr. Mitchell actually called and asked me to come back.

Johnson: Dance Theater of Harlem started off with two ideas-- to transform lives through art for young people in Harlem and to give dancers of color a place to mature and grow into artists, to have a career as ballet dancers where nobody said they could have one before.

[Classical music playing] So, in doing those two things, Dance Theater of Harlem actually did a third, because it enabled people to look at this art form of ballet in a different way, to show ballet didn't have a color.

[Classical music playing] People want ballet to reflect the past, but I think that ballet really has to reflect the present and project the future, and that's what Dance Theater of Harlem has been able to do.

[Classical music playing] It's so important for people to realize, what are you looking for when you go to see ballet?

Well, people go for different reasons.

Some people do go for the reassurance of a world that hasn't changed.

Some people go because they're ready for their minds to be open and to see another kind of beauty.

[Classical music playing] Murphy: This is not just about ballet.

Our society today is just moving at a very, very slow place when it comes to diversity.

You know, can't just be Dance Theater of Harlem that accepts dancers of color.

It has to grow to other companies.

[Classical music playing] Woman: It's gonna be interesting.

Different woman: Mm-hmm.

It's always like, when you're working with kids that don't really... Don't really--haven't had experience with ballet.

Like, how do you--it's kind of exciting, though.

They just have no idea.

They're completely oblivious that, you know, in Charlotte, there is...

There is a company.

The ballet company.

And we're sweating so much... Yeah, we work so hard.

We work so hard, and then-- so, what do you do?

Teach?

I'm like, no!

Ha ha ha!

Especially in areas like this, kids don't really get to see ballet that much, unless their parents are into it.

Then it's like, they don't even know it exists sometimes.

Yeah.

[Classical music playing] [Teacher speaking French] And tall.

We are coming in.

First position.

Chins up.

Man: You know, we're in America, and I think it's very important that we represent the diversity of American people.

[Classical music playing] Unfortunately, we audition between 300 and 500 dancers, let's say, and out of that, maybe there's 5, maximum 10 African-American.

Also for Hispanic, there's also more, you know, but maybe 20, 30 maximum, so, that's the way it is, so it's-- we cannot just complain about it.

Ha ha!

[Classical music playing] You just have to be proactive, you know, and say, is that important to me, or it's not.

Some dancers just don't come to audition because they don't feel comfortable in the ballet company.

Maybe they have the preconceived idea that they're not going to be accepted.

[Classical music playing] Woman: There have been, I guess, barriers maybe in my own mind thinking that I can't do something because of the color of my skin or because I don't feel like I look like the next, you know, girl next to me.

[Classical music playing] I'm like, "Oh, I can't do that."

Like, "I'm never gonna be able to be a soloist or a principal.

Like, what am I thinking, you know?"

It can really consume your mind and... Bonnefoux: I think it's up to us to also for them to believe that it's going to be the right company, that they will get to be really welcomed.

Don't think just one African-American dancer, male or female, and then you have done diversity work that you wanted to do.

It's more, let's go to discover them.

Recently, I talked to Virginia Johnson, and she's the director of Dance Theater of Harlem.

Because I trust Virginia so, so, so much and I know what a great job she's doing and she's going to do that it would be a good idea to make a commitment with her company to say that every year for the next 3 years, I will guarantee her that I will take two dancers from her school, and that those two dancers will come to be members of the second company.

Our second company travels and to go to the school, and that's how these young dancers are inspired, because they see most of the time dancers who are just like them, you know, and we need some heroes.

Do you have any family members that do ballet?

I'm the youngest out of 3 sisters, so, my two older sisters, they have some background.

Girl: Um, is dancing, like, each other, isn't it kind of like a team?

Woman: Because if you're dancing in a group, you all want to be together, and you all want to have the same line and everything, so, you have to work together and just--not just think about yourself.

Yes.

How many hours a day do you practice dancing?

It's 9:30 to 6, kind of--that kind of-- Next question.

Don't be shy.

We'll answer it.

Yes.

Girl: At what age did you get your pointe shoes, the pointe shoes?

Oh, I got my pointe shoes at 11.

I think I was 10 or 11.

Woman: Your feet are not used to it, so of course it's gonna hurt your first couple of times.

But it gets easier.

Brown: The gift isn't only given to white dancers.

The gift is given to others, but they have to have the opportunity.

What did Balanchine say, that the ballerina should be the color of a peeled apple?

But also, you know, if the apple stays peeled too long, it turns brown, so, you know, you got to have different shades of apples.

Kaiser: I don't know that we-- I don't know the answers to whether we actually will see an American company that reflects the diversity of this country.

I would like to think that we would.

I think that we're seeing very small steps in that direction.

But how quickly that happens, I just don't know.

You know.

Bonnefoux: We have to make some changes, and so if part of that evolution is not more diversity in the dancers' population, I don't think ballet is going to be successful.

That's really what I believe.

I think the future of ballet is at stake.

Johnson: We are human beings.

We share things.

We are identical in so many ways.

The expression, the desire to be excellent, to inspire doesn't belong to one group of people or another group of people.

The ability to be the shining example.

The example of beauty is not restricted to skin tone.

So, you can have a black ballerina.

The feeling of doing ballet, I just can't explain.

It carries me to another place.

I generally loved every day that I spent in the ballet.

Murphy: I knew that if I kept dancing, I could be like the ballerina on the stage.