It feels like just yesterday that we were shocked with the news that pop icon Prince had passed away. Now it’s been a year since his untimely death, and we miss his dance-able music and intoxicating stage presence more than ever. Though Prince was known for his genre-bending music, he was also a huge supporter […]

Ballet Across America returns to The Kennedy Center this week with a twist: programming curated by American Ballet Theatre principal Misty Copeland and New York City Ballet soloist/resident choreographer Justin Peck. It’s a unique opportunity to get inside the heads of two of the most influential figures in American ballet today—so what companies and choreographers […]

Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson, Debra Austin, Nora Kimball, Misty Copeland, Francesca Hayward. All of these successful black ballet dancers have something in common: they skew toward the fairer end of the sepia spectrum. Onstage, the duskiness of their complexions can be all but washed out, bleached by the lights. From the audience, they could present […]

In 2012, Misty Copeland was already a star on the American Ballet Theatre stage. But a national ad campaign for Diet Dr. Pepper effec­tively introduced the dancer to a whole new audience. Gilda Squire, Copeland’s manager who negotiated the deal with the brand’s advertising company, says partnering with the soda was a carefully planned move. […]

Misty Copeland and Eric Tamm in Ratmansky’s Nutcracker. PC Rosalie O’Connor Here at Dance Magazine, we have a hard time imagining Nutcracker without much dancing. But the more we learn about Disney’s plans for its upcoming live-action movie titled The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, the more we fear how little dancing will be involved. The good news: Misty Copeland will […]

Genre-crossing singer and songwriter Prince, 57, died in his Minnesota home this morning. Though few details have been made public, several news sites report that he fell ill and canceled a concert earlier in the month, and his plane had to make an emergency landing after a concert a few days ago. Much like his […]

It’s not difficult to see why filmmakers would want to create a biopic of Misty Copeland’s story.  The plot seems tailor-made for Hollywood: A 13-year-old black girl wanders into a ballet class at her local Boys & Girls Club and turns out to be a prodigy. By 18, she joins American Ballet Theatre and sets […]

Photo by Jayme Thornton Dance Magazine is the magazine I grew up reading. It influenced me to be the dancer I am today. So being asked not only to be on the cover a second time, but also to be the guest editor of this issue, feels so incredibly surreal. When I considered what stories […]