February 20, 2024 • 45 mins
Dancing is for everyone... and in this episode Misty Copeland joins Kevin to discuss her achievement as the first black prima ballerina, her recent foray into filmmaking, and her focus on making space in the dance world for more little girls like her. They are joined by Caryn Campbell, Executive Director of The Misty Copeland Foundation as they discuss their new initiative - the Be Bold Program - an after school program aimed at making dance accessible for young children of color.
To learn more and get involved with The Misty Copeland Foundation, head to MistyCopelandFoundation.org. To support more initiatives like this program, text 'BACON' to 707070 or head to SixDegrees.Org to learn more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you know, I was having dinner with a couple
of producers for this show. We were talking about Baltimore's
School of the Arts, where someone on our team worked
for ten years, and she mentioned that Tupac did ballet,
and we were just having this conversation about expanding the
ideas of who can study something like classical ballet, and
(00:27):
the fact that this is a world that has traditionally
been sort of narrow in the way the types of
people that will, you know, study ballet, and also the
fact that it's hasn't really necessarily tried that hard to
draw in young men, and certainly not young black men.
(00:47):
And Misty Copeland is my guest today, and she has
broken records from a young age and now she is
just pushing for exactly that, for more diversity in dance
with her foundation, the Misty Copeland Foundation. She's the first
black principal ballerine at the American Ballet Theater, and I
might add that it took them seventy years to get there.
(01:11):
So lean in. I'm glad you're here from this one. Hey,
thank you everybody for being here today. I'm very, very
excited to have our guest, Misty Copeland with us on
the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. For those of you
(01:33):
who don't know, get out from under the Rock. This
is one of America's greatest ballerina is with an incredible
history and an incredible story. You know, I'm always looking
for connections. That's kind of like what kind of one
of the essence of this particular podcast. And it's interesting
(01:56):
because recently I was speaking to Eli Manning, who was
a great quarterback for the New York Giants, and uh,
I was talking about how hard it is for me
to picture doing what he does for a living. And
you know, in my job, I'm constantly meeting with people
(02:19):
and trying to do research and ride alongs and you know,
trying to make me look like I could actually do
a job that I have would have no idea how
to do. So when I look at something like, you know,
being a quarterback. But the strange thing is is that
I did a dance movie and I can't imagine being
a dancer. I mean, I just I just think about
(02:40):
that like it's you know, the the the discipline and
the and the and the dedication and the toll on
your body and all those things in that really tiny
little moment that I had to experience. It really kicked
my ass. So I'm really curious about what the what
the what the what the choice was, and what was
(03:01):
the road that brought you to this life.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, I love hearing people's experiences with dance, and so
many people that have ventured into all different, you know,
areas of whatever it is they choose to do, have
some sort of connection with it, you know. I think
it's such a an innate part of us as human beings.
(03:25):
Like what we do, Like the first thing we do
when we come out of the womb is we scream
and we move our bodies.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Like that's like how.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We communicate before we have language, we move our bodies,
and so it's it's always fascinating for me to hear
people's experience with that. And it was something that I
kind of clung onto from a very young age, growing
up one of six children in a single parent home,
a middle child, and already I was very shy and introverted,
(03:54):
and so dance became this very natural outlet for me
to find my voice. But ballet, I had no introduction
to ballet at all.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I'd never heard classical music, and that wouldn't come into
my life until I was thirteen years.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Old, and it was, so, what were you listening to?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Oh Man, Well, Mariah Carey was a huge, a huge
inspiration for me because she her her debut album came
out when I was like seven eight years old, and
you know, it was the first time I felt.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Really connected to someone and I felt like I could
see myself there her being biracial, and I felt like
I didn't have a lot of that representation. That's not
something I could identify at that age. It would take
me years to like really recognize why I was so
fascinated by. I saw something that you recognized, but I
saw something. But I listened to a lot of like
pop and hip hop and R and B music, and
(04:52):
I was creating to that. So when I was introduced
to ballet, it was so foreign. It was at a
boys and girls club at my community center that was
like right across the street from the public school I
was attending in San Pedro, California. And immediately the teacher
who was offering this free ballet class at the boys
(05:14):
and Girls club on the basketball court in the gym,
she immediately saw talent she said, you're a prodigy, and
I want to bring you into my school in full scholarship.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
And it was.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Shocking to me, like I didn't really know what ballet.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Maybe I didn't hear that. How old were you?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I was thirteen?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Thirteen, Okay, so thirteen seems kind of isn't it kind
of late? Before ballet it is old. It has been.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, I mean similar to you know when you think
about like figure skaters or gymnasts, you know there's, yeah,
you start young, or there's this idea that you want
to mold the body and really ingrain this language and
technique before the body hits puberty to be blunt and
(06:09):
just so that it's something that's really ingrained and become
second nature. So by the time you become a teenager
a young adult, you're not thinking about these things.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You're starting to work on your artistry because.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's literally wanting to mold the actual body of the
child into into whatever that thing happens.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
To be exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And you know, I think I was built for this.
I think I was born with the body and my
body was still agile and like really just kind of
soaked up all of this information so quickly uh, you know,
and I was called a prodigy.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And it took some uh some.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Kind of you know, like pushing for me to really
want to commit to it because at the time, I
was on the dance team at my middle school and
that me was like so much fun. I was dancing
to like George Michael and and I was like, I
didn't really have any interest in this thing called, you know,
classical ballet and classical music. But it wasn't until I
left the boys and Girls club and was taken into
(07:12):
the local ballet school that I really started to feel
empowered and and like I was a part of something
that was bigger than me, that I had a sense
of purpose that I never experienced. And it was like
this technique was everything I was searching for and needed,
(07:34):
not not you know, not in terms of just like physicality,
but emotionally and intellectually. Uh. There were so many things
as a young person that I was not what's the
word I'm looking for. I hadn't evolved in the way
that I think I needed to at that point because
(07:55):
of what I had been exposed to in my young life,
and ballet kind of allowed me to like speed up
and catch up to where I needed to be in
so many ways, and that's like the beauty of art.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, well, I can one hundred percent, uh relate to
one piece of that, and that is that I remember,
I've actually talked about it on the show before, but
that the first time that I got into an acting class.
You know, I was probably about twelve or something, and
(08:31):
you know, preteen, and you know, trying to be cool
and trying to be tough and you know, trying to
be a boy and do all that stuff. And it
was so freeing to me because I could be vulnerable,
I could be I found it, whether I even knew
this word, I found it immediately therapeutic. So it wasn't
(08:55):
just the creation of the part or the art. It
was actually something that was whether I wasn't even cognizant
of it, but I think I really needed it to
help me get through these those years, which are you know,
they are tough years in any situation. So it sounds
(09:18):
like it gave you something that was pretty deep and
profound on a personal level.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It Yeah, yeah, I mean so much of what you're saying.
I mean, it definitely was therapeutic. It also gave me
this sense of stability and structure that I had never experienced.
There's a lot of chaos and moving around in my
childhood and to have something that I come to, I
know it's going to be there every day, I don't know.
(09:43):
It was like three point thirty my ballet class, and
I knew exactly what we're going to do, the structure
of the class. We're going to start with Pia's, go
to Tandi's and Degachts and Fondi's, and you know, there's
this consistency that's built that becomes almost like a meditation
that allowed my body just to like release and relax.
I was such a tense, nervous child because of that
(10:08):
lack of stability and not knowing if there was going
to be food on the table or a roof over
our heads, and there was something that ballet just gave
me this this sense of safety.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Almost have you ever in retrospect questioned or or wondered
about ballet in terms of those those things in terms
of a child, you know, having such a rigorous schedule,
having such a difficult, uh you know, physically difficult workload
(10:41):
to accomplish every day, being in the spotlight, all those
kinds of things, I mean it's kind of like the
question of, you know, would you let your kid play football?
You know, I mean, do you have you ever questioned
any of those things as you've grown up or or
lived your life or had this career.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
No, I really haven't.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I feel I feel very fortunate because of the teachers
that I've had. I know, those teachers that aren't nurturing
and that perpetuate the trauma they've experienced, and I don't
feel that I had that experience, which is so rare
(11:20):
in the ballet world, you know. But I had an
environment that was very nurturing and that allowed me to
feel like, this is fun, this is something I want
to return to.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I enjoyed the challenge.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
And it just felt like beauty to me. It didn't
feel like you know, I think people think of it
often think of discipline a discipline in.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Like a negative way.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I would absolutely put my son in ballet, and I
you know, I mean, this was the reason for starting
the Misty Copland Foundation and starting our signature program. Be
Bold was with this idea that when you remove all
of the stuff at its core, ballet is so good.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
There's so many.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Incredible tools that you can take into all areas of
your life. You know, it's not just about becoming a
professional dancer, you know, it's it's being exposed to the
to the rigor, to the joy.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
To the music, to the discipline.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
You know, so many things that you get from being
an athlete and an artist, and it's really combined in ballet.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
How old is your son?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
He is almost eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Eighteen months, Okay, so he's probably not dancing yet, although
maybe I don't know he is. He is, Okay, so
there you go.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
He is.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But this brings up a question that's always kind of
amazed me, and you sort of alluded to it a
little bit. Becare as you said that you were a natural.
I mean, obviously if you were that much of a
prodigy at such a young age and such an accelerated,
you know, kind of career. You know, I'll go to
a of a wedding and look around and there'll be
(13:19):
people and I just can't even understand how they could
be so off about the way they move. I'm not
even talking about like, I'm not even talking about choices
of what kind of moves you're gonna do. I'm talking
about literal, like no idea that there is a beat
(13:40):
like no idea, not even talking about clapping on the
one in the three. I'm talking about like you'd literally
not hearing that there's any kind of rhythm to And
I wonder if there's if that is a nature nurture thing.
I mean, I literally, I'm not I'm not a great dancer,
(14:01):
but from the time I was a little kid, I
could dance. Yeah, I mean I could. I'm I'm I'm not,
I'm not skilled whatever, but I can definitely hear with
the thing is supposed to be? What? What? What? What's
your feeling about that. I've never spoken to a ballet
dancer about that.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
So I'm a believer that anything is possible.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Okay, I don't.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I do.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I think that it may not look the way.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
That you you imagine it should look, but there's possibility
in growth if someone is exposed to it and and taught.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I mean, I've seen it. I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I've seen dancers that have grown immensely, like you know,
with the right focus and intention and nurturing people that
you know, it's like, I don't know if there's any
potential there, and then you know, I don't know how
many years later, but I do.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
I think it's possible, and you believe it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
It can all be taught. It can all be taught.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't know about all, but I think that everyone
can learn to dance to like the best of their ability.
But there can't there can be something learned and improvement made. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
So yeah, so everyone right now, get up, put on
Mariah Carey, yes, and get to.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You have if you have a body, If you have
a body, you can dance.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Well. Listen, I mean your heart beats in rhythm, right,
your heart's beat in rhythm. It should it should be
a natural it should be a natural thing. I was
reading that. I was reading that you performed. Did you
perform with Taylor Swift?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
That's wild, It was really Yeah, it was really an.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Incredible experience to perform with someone not only that you know,
talent and successful, but that's so gracious and grounded, that's
always like in a different way, in a different way,
in a different way. I mean, Prince I you know,
(16:14):
that's one of the closest collaborations that I've had with
another artist, and spent many many years working with him
on and off, and he just had such a confidence
and a way about him, and I think that a
lot of people didn't realize was how much he gave
back and mentored and was constantly looking for, you know,
(16:37):
someone young and up and coming that he could kind
of take under his wing. I didn't find this out
until after he had passed, but that he had been
following my career since I was about fourteen or fifteen
years old.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Wo.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, we ended.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Up collaborating for the first time. I think when I
was around twenty six twenty seven. He had been trying
to contact me and had been following my career. But
he's that way with a lot of young artists, and
it's amazing to be able to have access to someone
like him, with his experience and incredible gifts, and to
get to be on stage and perform with and see
(17:18):
it firsthandow and learn from a genius. So I I,
you know, attribute a lot of my growth as an
artist to the time that we spent working together.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Did you have a mentor was that with mentorship important?
I mean to you when you're when you're.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Coming up, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I Mean what's so interesting is that it's really built
in to the to the ballet structure, you know, so
much of the choreography and kind of notes and things
like that aren't really documented in writing, so a lot
of what we what we learn is pasted literally from
(18:00):
one mouth to the next. And so there's this kind
of built it in mentorship within the structure of how
how a ballet company or school works. And so my
first ballet teacher was definitely like that for me, and
it just became something that was natural for me to
kind of seek out.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Or be open to the idea of guidance.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Victoria Ral was probably one of the first people that
really took me under her wing. Actress, soap opera actress,
and she actually started out as a as a ballerina
at American Ballet Theater and Uh, to have someone who
has walked in those in my shoes, you know, as
(18:44):
a black woman in a ballet company where you don't
see anyone who looks like you like it was just
meant a lot just to sit down and see her,
hear the stories, have these conversations, and it's it's been
such a big part of my journey is just having
the mentors in my life.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
The first black prima ballerina in the history of ABT
which American ballet theater, which is something amazing to be
to be so proud of it only took them seventy
five years, but but you were it, and that's quite
an accomplishment. You know, you mentioned something which is fascinating
(19:25):
to me, and that is that, well, there's two pieces
of it. I mean back to I guess football is
on my mind, but back to you know, athletes they
use their bodies and they have to you know, sacrifice
their bodies in those kinds of ways. But what's going
on in their face? Maybe in baseball, but it is
(19:48):
basically not the story. It's all about this machine, whereas
in ballet that's a big, big piece. Is this lack
of a better word, acting component, you know, the emotional component.
It's not just you know, how well you hear the
(20:09):
music of portraiteaus or how high you leap any of
those things. And my question is you've performed, you know,
countless ballets that are choreographed, and the choreography I don't
even know if this is true, but it's written down correct,
like there's an actual notation or there's a way to
(20:31):
write it, like there is music of what the choreography is. Yes,
but are you how to what extent can you make choices?
So like the whole thing is is, you know, I
get a characters written down a page, but then it's
all about the choices that I make, and maybe the
choices that I make between take one and Take four,
(20:52):
or also that if I'm doing a play, the choices
that I'm gonna make on a Tuesday night or a
Wednesday afternoon change all the time. So I'm wondering, when
you're in the in the heat of it, how much
are those choices you're allowed to make.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, that's a great question. So there is dance notation,
but it's like such a rare art and we rarely
use it. But again, like I was saying, it's literally
just passed down from uh, from dancer to dancer and
whoever is whoever owns the ballet and sets the ballet,
so they literally sit you.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
In a room and dance from there.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, the choreographer is long long dead, so with a
lot of these ballets, so it's really passed on from
like ballerina to like that's that you know, it was
it was created on them and then it was passed
on to another ballerina to another Valerias. It's literally handed
down like that. But within that so you're you're taught
exact choreography that you have to do. Like there's there's
(21:50):
no real wiggle room within these, you know, ballets that
were created in like the late eighteen hundreds. But when
it comes to care, sure, like you do have a
choice in how you approach certain things. Also depending on
who's setting the ballet. So there are some some uh
(22:10):
former dancers that will come and have kind of ownership
over what the ballet will look like and and they
don't really give you a lot of space. But for
me personally, I have often done a lot of research
outside of the ballet company and gotten coaching in terms
(22:31):
of like theater acting outside of American Ballet theater, and
will make choices in the moment on stage when it's
too late for anyone to say anything to me.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, I like I like because there's no take too,
there's no take. That's that's that's the way to be.
I like I like that a lot. That's that's that's awesome.
Tell me about the Flowers movie. I mean, you're you
have you I love me just say You're doing so
many other things besides dancing films and books, and I
(23:05):
think children's books as well, and yeah, you know, all
kinds of the charitable work which we're going to get into.
But I'm curious about the Flowers movie.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, I mean it's a great segue in terms of
what we were just talking about, because what's been so
fascinating stepping into this space. So I have a production
company that I started with my best friend who is
a former ballerino.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
We met at American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Theater and she transitioned after only a year of dancing
professionally into writing and producing in television and that's what
she's been doing for almost twenty years. And so we
created this production company and.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
To transition into being creative.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
In this space, you know, I have so much I
have to take much more initiative, and I have much
more agency and creative power and freedom in a way that.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Like I never experienced in my field.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So with this, this is our first project that really
has come to fruition.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
It's a short film.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It's an art activism film all Flower and I produced
it and came up with the concept with our executive
producer and Nelson George and a star in it. And
you know, it was just such a unique experience for
me to be acting on camera without words. It's all
(24:29):
through I guess my type, movement and dance and you know,
the just the differences of what you need to do
when you're in front of a camera versus you know,
the Metropolitan Opera house and projecting to the top tier
of the theater. So that that experience was challenging, but also,
(24:55):
you know, I love to have like an artistic and
physical challenge.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So it was such a cool experience.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
But to use my art and to use my voice
in my platform to highlight and focus on a community
that at the time when we filmed it was during
the pandemic, was you know, is really struggling Oakland, California,
you know, gentrification in the housing crisis, and then homelessness
and houselessness in that community. So to be able to
(25:22):
shine a light, highlight the artists in that community and
tell a story that I think is important.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
For them was just a really, really cool experience.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I got to check that out. That sounds that sounds amazing.
I would love to see that.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
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(26:11):
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Speaker 1 (26:18):
Okay, well, I think this is a good spot to
Welcome to the show, Karen Campbell. Karen is the executive
director of Misty's Foundation, the Misty Copeland Foundation. Hi, Karen,
thanks for being here today with us.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Hi Kevin, thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Tell us about be bold.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
It stands for Ballet Explorations, Ballet offers leadership development and
we're actually celebrating one year anniversary of this program and
it's after school for children five to twelve years old,
so there's a big age range to learn ballet an affordable,
(26:58):
accessible and fun way. So we have twelve week cycles
twice a week, one hour at each class, and it's
two teaching artists and a musician. And Misty had the
idea that she wanted it to be fun and for
kids to learn in a less traditional way, still structured,
(27:18):
but less traditional. So having African drums or bass guitar
player or keyboards, you know, we do across the board
like different instruments and they during the course of the class.
What's so amazing, and this is Misty's vision, was that
each class would start with community agreements, so the teaching
(27:40):
artists and the children would talk about how they're what
they want to have happen in the class, and what
shouldn't happen, so things that give them agency. Are they
feeling comfortable, Are they feeling welcomed? Are they feeling good?
To continue during the course of the class, and they'll
do a circle up in the beginning and talk about
(28:01):
how they're feeling, like am I feeling cloudy today? Am
I feeling sunny today? So that's how each class starts,
and it's really important for a couple of reasons. One,
kids during COVID had no opportunity for after school obviously
or for often expressing their feelings, especially this you know
(28:22):
community that we're working with, and then for them to
be able to work with these teaching artists and musicians
each the framework that we're we've created, we're calling it
a framework, not a curriculum, because we're basically flying the
plane as we're building it. And so we're working with
(28:44):
a child developmental psychologist and a DEIA consultant to determine
the best ways to work with these children who have
had trauma during before COVID, certainly during and now afterwards,
you know, finding a way to find their voice and
to feel like they have something that gives them structure.
(29:07):
To Misty's point, ballet has that ability to give structure
and kind of life for them outside of their lives,
the lives that they've had, and we know that after
school programming in particular, you know, they often don't have
that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
There's so much about that that I love. First off,
the fact that the Misty you talked about the experience
that you had and going into this ballet class and
trying to get a hold of the chaos in your
life and feeling that. I also think that I feel
(29:48):
like we don't even really have had We haven't even
quite reckoned with what COVID must have been like for
children and or can used to bay or whatever. My
brother's got God right now, you know, I don't know.
I I think that the it is so so interesting
(30:12):
to focus on on on that what that trauma is
and and having to deal with it, but also not
not just doing the dancing, but coming in and talking
about you know what, what what's going on for you
and what you want to do with that day. It's
it's all great. And I love the idea that there's
(30:32):
a live musician because you know, there's nothing you could
put on the best recording of an African drama and
it's just not going to be the same as the
way it feels to see someone hitting that thing in
the in the room. I mean, I think that's really
that sounds great. How do you how do you where
(30:54):
do you put these schools? How do you find the schools?
How does it spread?
Speaker 6 (30:59):
Well, you know, we started because Misty started at Boys
and Girls Club and has a relationship continuing relationship with them.
We started at Boys and Girls clubs in the Bronx
and in Harlem because they had the children they already
had after school. They often had the facility like a
dance studio that we could use and sometimes they even
(31:20):
had teaching artists that we can employ as well. So
that was the beginning of it and now in the
spring we had about set We're in seven sites now
this fall we're going to be in fourteen sites. So
we've grown kind of quickly, been in a very organic
and wonderful way, and through our network of we've been
(31:42):
advisory council of dance professionals, dance teachers, people who we
could go to in order to find these teaching artists,
and that's been the most amazing thing to be able
to grow it pretty quickly. One of the other things
that we found was that we needed it in the spring,
(32:02):
we found that we needed it to be more ballet focused,
and Nisty really thought that was important. So the way
the framework is set up now it's more ballet focused
instead of movement, but it also continues to be impactful.
So the developmental psychologist has done an impact study for
us already so that we can see what we're doing
(32:24):
right and what we need to improve. And one of
the things that we need to we're hoping to improve
is to get more boys involved in the program, which
you can imagine at the beginning of each session, the
program director, Cindy Folgar and I we go to each
site and talk to the caregivers so we get some
buy in so they understand what we're doing because often
(32:47):
you can imagine like ballet, what does that mean to
a lot of people in the community and certainly to boys.
But we were really lucky that this fall in our training.
We just did a three day training for our new
teaching artist. We have six men of color, which is amazing,
which means that we can have more outreach, hopefully for
boys in the community and just a way to explain
(33:09):
to them. When you're talking about Eli Manning, there's so
many I was just talking to Alan Houston, who's former
basketball player, one of his philanthropic people.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:21):
Well, I don't know if anyone everyone in your audience,
Oh good, good, good, But but we were talking about
how athletes, professional athletes really use ballet often and it's
something that it's important for, you know, young kids to understand.
So it's just a way to buy and for them
to understand their There are avenues too out for outreach
(33:43):
in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So it's the music.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
It's a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
That's great. I love that this is This is sounds
like such a such a such a great program. Were
you a dancer? How did you get involved? Did you
know each other?
Speaker 6 (33:57):
No? We it's we feel like I feel like I've
known her for whatever, and we've only known each other
for about six months. I've only been working at the foundation.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
It's only been six months.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Oh my gosh, it feels like a long time.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
Yeah. I was at Alvin Ailey before starting with Misty,
so I was there for eight years, which is an
amazing place. And actually my son when you talk about
going a wedding, my son danced at a Ley before
I worked there.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh wow, wow, yeah, okay, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It was, you know, really important for me to to
find a team that was diverse, and it was really
important that I had a CEO, you know, an executive
director that was there was a woman of color, and
to find Carr. I mean, everyone at Alvin a Lee
comes up to me and they're like, why did you
take her from us? And I'm like, sorry, guys, we're
(34:53):
doing we're doing important work too. But you know, it's
really important that the people that the children are seeing
that they can see themselves through through the people that
are in these leadership positions. And you know, in starting
this program, it's like I wanted to take again what
I was saying earlier, like ballet at its core and
(35:15):
all the incredible elements of it and strip away all
of the other stuff that has created, i think even
just in like film and media and television, this negative
connotation and these negative tropes about what it is and
get back to what it can do for a human
being and what it can do for a child and
(35:35):
what it did for me. And so you know, it's
important that we built a framework that made sense for
these communities. So we're not bringing this traditional European art
form into these black and brown communities, but we're creating
it and really curating it for them. So it's music,
it's musicians, it's teaching artists to look like them. It's
(35:56):
talking about the history, the black and brown history that
we're not taught in, that we don't see in ballet
history books, so that these dancers can say like, oh,
there have been people that look like me who do this.
There have been men, there have been black men that
have done this and have been successful. So all of
those elements were really important, and in the end, it
(36:18):
was like, we need to make this fun because again
it's like this this idea that ballet is boring and
ballet is slow, and getting back to like using this
technique and bringing people together in a community through movement
and making it fun for them.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's that's fantastic you mentioned, and I'm curious about this
that you have learned or decided to slide the program
a little bit away from just movement and more towards ballet.
So I'm just curious about that specifically.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, you know, initially when we started out, we partnered
up with an incredible organization called India, the National Dance
Institute that was founded by former principal dancer of New
York City Ballet, Jacques dem Bois, and he really created
(37:14):
this incredible fun way of introducing dance to kids in
school in this incredible fun way and an amazing structure.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
And so I went to them and I was like,
how do we do this with ballet?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And you know, in our in our first you know, pilot,
it was definitely kind of thin on the ballet and
much more about creating this fun movement environment.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
And you know, once.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I saw it on several classes, I realized that we
could still have that concept, but to insert a little
bit more structure of the ballet technique so that if
these dancers, any of them, wanted to go on and
go into a school, a professional school, they would have
a really legitimate ballet base to work from, so that
(38:03):
it wasn't you know that they were saying, oh, I
was in this ballet class, and their Misty copelit, and
then they don't really have any any real language and
idea of the technique. And and we've found that we
can combine all of those things. It's amazing what we
can fit in in an hour as well.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Let me ask you both this, what is it about, uh,
you know, reaching out two kids to give them uh uh,
this kind of these kinds of outlets, to to mentor
to give them an opportunity to do something outside of
what what their their life or their environment. What is
(38:43):
it that you think was in both of your upbringings
that kind of steered you towards wanting to do this
kind of work? Karen, Karen, I'll.
Speaker 6 (38:54):
Start Yeah, no, no, go ahead, Karen, I have said
to Misty when I got this job. I have had
very a varied career. I started out film production, and
I actually like my first.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Major movie was uh, Spike Lee's Malcolm X.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
And I was a production.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Coordinator, So auspicious beginning.
Speaker 6 (39:20):
Yeah, Well, I worked a paramount for a few years before,
but that was my first production cordator job.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
But to have the uh to have the experience of
working in the film, and especially when I was in
it at that time for women, it was very challenging
and to be a person of color and then ending
up going into fundraising and ultimately ending up with Nisty
and this foundation.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
To me, it was it's it's a.
Speaker 6 (39:52):
Huge thing to be able to give children this idea
that there are things that you can do outside of
your world. We're going to show you what that looks like,
and that we can really open up a world for
them that they wouldn't have And I feel like that
is so important. That's so meaningful when you go in
today's classes and we haven't only been teaching them about dance,
(40:15):
but we've started getting tickets for different things, for them
to have the opportunities with their families to go see
different performances and to get out in the wide, wider world,
which I think for so many kids coming from where
they come from, it's really important.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Love that.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Yeah, I mean I've been on the receiving end of
that for you know, so much of my childhood in
terms of like having teachers that invested in me and
what it's done for me, and so it's it's like
a no brainer. It's like, oh, I need to do this,
Like I've had that experience and I've seen what it's
(40:55):
done for me, and I feel like I've been given
this opportunity and this platform in order to go back
into these communities and give them what I've learned and
what I've experienced. And yeah, it's just again, it's like
a no brainer to be able to continue that cycle
(41:19):
because of all the incredible things I've gained by being
exposed to this art form and having incredible teachers and
mentors along the way.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's awesome. I love that, you know. It's funny. I
hadn't even thought about this when I was getting ready
for this episode. But when I was a kid, well
it was probably about the probably about fourteen or fifteen,
I got a summer scholarship to this thing called the
(41:49):
Pennsylvania Governor School for the Arts, where you auditioned and
then you went out to this you know thing for
a few weeks in the summer you could study art.
And one of the one of the arts they had
was they had music and they had acting, of course,
I was there for the acting and one of the
arts they had was ballet, and I made friends with
(42:12):
this kid who was a ballet dancer. In fact, I
think that summer he decided to become a ballet dancer.
I don't think he'd ever done it. He was he
was an athlete, and you know, and just like took
to it. And he got a scholarship to the Pennsylvania
Ballet and came back and lived in my house. My mom.
(42:37):
My mom took him in and he lived in my
house for that entire year while he studied at the
Pennsylvania Ballet. And I hadn't really thought about this, but
you know, I think up to that point, I hadn't
really thought of that. You know, I kind of thought
of it as something that girls do basically, you know
(42:59):
what I mean, you know, that's that was that's kind
of the thing. I mean, you were mentioning not only
having uh men, but but men of color be there
and and be visible and and and you know, be
seen and with all that strength and grace and you know,
and and it really did actually it was pretty it was.
(43:22):
It kind of you know, stuck with me. And and
I think it in some ways, you know, probably adjusted
my ideas of what what a dance is or what
a dancer is. I didn't know anything about ballet. I
mean I to me, ballet was you know, just not
something that was on my radar me. But but that's
that's that's great that you guys are doing that. I
(43:43):
think it sounds like a fantastic program. How can people
learn about it or reach out or or or help
you know, this is this is the moment for the
call to action to go to.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
Our website and you can read more, learn a little
more about or contact if you want to learn more.
Come to see a class, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
We love to have you come and see a class.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I would love to come see a class. I really
would honestly, Oh my.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Gosh, we would love that.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Follow us on Instagram as well, Missy Copeland Foundation, Right,
that would be fun.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I was wondering if you ever had people come check
it out.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, we have guests, so it would be awesome to
yeah to.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Have you all right, just don't expect me to show
anybody any moves. That ship is sale.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Right down to all right, Thank you guys so much,
thanks for being here. It's great talking with you.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Thank you so much for your time. It's been fantastic.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six
Degrees with Kevin Bacon. If you want to learn more
about the Misty Copeland Foundation and all the work that
they are up to, head over to their website Misty
Copelandfoundation dot org. Mistycopeland Foundation dot org. You define all
the links in our show notes. If you like what
(45:10):
you hear, make sure you subscribe to the show. To
this show, tune into the rest of our episodes. I
think you're gonna like them. You can find Six Degrees
with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. I'll see you next time.
So you know, I was having dinner with a couple
of producers for this show. We were talking about Baltimore's
School of the Arts, where someone on our team worked
for ten years, and she mentioned that Tupac did ballet,
and we were just having this conversation about expanding the
ideas of who can study something like classical ballet, and
(00:27):
the fact that this is a world that has traditionally
been sort of narrow in the way the types of
people that will, you know, study ballet, and also the
fact that it's hasn't really necessarily tried that hard to
draw in young men, and certainly not young black men.
(00:47):
And Misty Copeland is my guest today, and she has
broken records from a young age and now she is
just pushing for exactly that, for more diversity in dance
with her foundation, the Misty Copeland Foundation. She's the first
black principal ballerine at the American Ballet Theater, and I
might add that it took them seventy years to get there.
(01:11):
So lean in. I'm glad you're here from this one. Hey,
thank you everybody for being here today. I'm very, very
excited to have our guest, Misty Copeland with us on
the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. For those of you
(01:33):
who don't know, get out from under the Rock. This
is one of America's greatest ballerina is with an incredible
history and an incredible story. You know, I'm always looking
for connections. That's kind of like what kind of one
of the essence of this particular podcast. And it's interesting
(01:56):
because recently I was speaking to Eli Manning, who was
a great quarterback for the New York Giants, and uh,
I was talking about how hard it is for me
to picture doing what he does for a living. And
you know, in my job, I'm constantly meeting with people
(02:19):
and trying to do research and ride alongs and you know,
trying to make me look like I could actually do
a job that I have would have no idea how
to do. So when I look at something like, you know,
being a quarterback. But the strange thing is is that
I did a dance movie and I can't imagine being
a dancer. I mean, I just I just think about
(02:40):
that like it's you know, the the the discipline and
the and the and the dedication and the toll on
your body and all those things in that really tiny
little moment that I had to experience. It really kicked
my ass. So I'm really curious about what the what
the what the what the choice was, and what was
(03:01):
the road that brought you to this life.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, I love hearing people's experiences with dance, and so
many people that have ventured into all different, you know,
areas of whatever it is they choose to do, have
some sort of connection with it, you know. I think
it's such a an innate part of us as human beings.
(03:25):
Like what we do, Like the first thing we do
when we come out of the womb is we scream
and we move our bodies.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Like that's like how.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We communicate before we have language, we move our bodies,
and so it's it's always fascinating for me to hear
people's experience with that. And it was something that I
kind of clung onto from a very young age, growing
up one of six children in a single parent home,
a middle child, and already I was very shy and introverted,
(03:54):
and so dance became this very natural outlet for me
to find my voice. But ballet, I had no introduction
to ballet at all.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I'd never heard classical music, and that wouldn't come into
my life until I was thirteen years.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Old, and it was, so, what were you listening to?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Oh Man, Well, Mariah Carey was a huge, a huge
inspiration for me because she her her debut album came
out when I was like seven eight years old, and
you know, it was the first time I felt.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Really connected to someone and I felt like I could
see myself there her being biracial, and I felt like
I didn't have a lot of that representation. That's not
something I could identify at that age. It would take
me years to like really recognize why I was so
fascinated by. I saw something that you recognized, but I
saw something. But I listened to a lot of like
pop and hip hop and R and B music, and
(04:52):
I was creating to that. So when I was introduced
to ballet, it was so foreign. It was at a
boys and girls club at my community center that was
like right across the street from the public school I
was attending in San Pedro, California. And immediately the teacher
who was offering this free ballet class at the boys
(05:14):
and Girls club on the basketball court in the gym,
she immediately saw talent she said, you're a prodigy, and
I want to bring you into my school in full scholarship.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
And it was.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Shocking to me, like I didn't really know what ballet.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Maybe I didn't hear that. How old were you?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I was thirteen?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Thirteen, Okay, so thirteen seems kind of isn't it kind
of late? Before ballet it is old. It has been.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, I mean similar to you know when you think
about like figure skaters or gymnasts, you know there's, yeah,
you start young, or there's this idea that you want
to mold the body and really ingrain this language and
technique before the body hits puberty to be blunt and
(06:09):
just so that it's something that's really ingrained and become
second nature. So by the time you become a teenager
a young adult, you're not thinking about these things.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You're starting to work on your artistry because.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's literally wanting to mold the actual body of the
child into into whatever that thing happens.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
To be exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And you know, I think I was built for this.
I think I was born with the body and my
body was still agile and like really just kind of
soaked up all of this information so quickly uh, you know,
and I was called a prodigy.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And it took some uh some.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Kind of you know, like pushing for me to really
want to commit to it because at the time, I
was on the dance team at my middle school and
that me was like so much fun. I was dancing
to like George Michael and and I was like, I
didn't really have any interest in this thing called, you know,
classical ballet and classical music. But it wasn't until I
left the boys and Girls club and was taken into
(07:12):
the local ballet school that I really started to feel
empowered and and like I was a part of something
that was bigger than me, that I had a sense
of purpose that I never experienced. And it was like
this technique was everything I was searching for and needed,
(07:34):
not not you know, not in terms of just like physicality,
but emotionally and intellectually. Uh. There were so many things
as a young person that I was not what's the
word I'm looking for. I hadn't evolved in the way
that I think I needed to at that point because
(07:55):
of what I had been exposed to in my young life,
and ballet kind of allowed me to like speed up
and catch up to where I needed to be in
so many ways, and that's like the beauty of art.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, well, I can one hundred percent, uh relate to
one piece of that, and that is that I remember,
I've actually talked about it on the show before, but
that the first time that I got into an acting class.
You know, I was probably about twelve or something, and
(08:31):
you know, preteen, and you know, trying to be cool
and trying to be tough and you know, trying to
be a boy and do all that stuff. And it
was so freeing to me because I could be vulnerable,
I could be I found it, whether I even knew
this word, I found it immediately therapeutic. So it wasn't
(08:55):
just the creation of the part or the art. It
was actually something that was whether I wasn't even cognizant
of it, but I think I really needed it to
help me get through these those years, which are you know,
they are tough years in any situation. So it sounds
(09:18):
like it gave you something that was pretty deep and
profound on a personal level.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It Yeah, yeah, I mean so much of what you're saying.
I mean, it definitely was therapeutic. It also gave me
this sense of stability and structure that I had never experienced.
There's a lot of chaos and moving around in my
childhood and to have something that I come to, I
know it's going to be there every day, I don't know.
(09:43):
It was like three point thirty my ballet class, and
I knew exactly what we're going to do, the structure
of the class. We're going to start with Pia's, go
to Tandi's and Degachts and Fondi's, and you know, there's
this consistency that's built that becomes almost like a meditation
that allowed my body just to like release and relax.
I was such a tense, nervous child because of that
(10:08):
lack of stability and not knowing if there was going
to be food on the table or a roof over
our heads, and there was something that ballet just gave
me this this sense of safety.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Almost have you ever in retrospect questioned or or wondered
about ballet in terms of those those things in terms
of a child, you know, having such a rigorous schedule,
having such a difficult, uh you know, physically difficult workload
(10:41):
to accomplish every day, being in the spotlight, all those
kinds of things, I mean it's kind of like the
question of, you know, would you let your kid play football?
You know, I mean, do you have you ever questioned
any of those things as you've grown up or or
lived your life or had this career.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
No, I really haven't.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I feel I feel very fortunate because of the teachers
that I've had. I know, those teachers that aren't nurturing
and that perpetuate the trauma they've experienced, and I don't
feel that I had that experience, which is so rare
(11:20):
in the ballet world, you know. But I had an
environment that was very nurturing and that allowed me to
feel like, this is fun, this is something I want
to return to.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I enjoyed the challenge.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
And it just felt like beauty to me. It didn't
feel like you know, I think people think of it
often think of discipline a discipline in.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Like a negative way.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I would absolutely put my son in ballet, and I
you know, I mean, this was the reason for starting
the Misty Copland Foundation and starting our signature program. Be
Bold was with this idea that when you remove all
of the stuff at its core, ballet is so good.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
There's so many.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Incredible tools that you can take into all areas of
your life. You know, it's not just about becoming a
professional dancer, you know, it's it's being exposed to the
to the rigor, to the joy.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
To the music, to the discipline.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
You know, so many things that you get from being
an athlete and an artist, and it's really combined in ballet.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
How old is your son?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
He is almost eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Eighteen months, Okay, so he's probably not dancing yet, although
maybe I don't know he is. He is, Okay, so
there you go.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
He is.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But this brings up a question that's always kind of
amazed me, and you sort of alluded to it a
little bit. Becare as you said that you were a natural.
I mean, obviously if you were that much of a
prodigy at such a young age and such an accelerated,
you know, kind of career. You know, I'll go to
a of a wedding and look around and there'll be
(13:19):
people and I just can't even understand how they could
be so off about the way they move. I'm not
even talking about like, I'm not even talking about choices
of what kind of moves you're gonna do. I'm talking
about literal, like no idea that there is a beat
(13:40):
like no idea, not even talking about clapping on the
one in the three. I'm talking about like you'd literally
not hearing that there's any kind of rhythm to And
I wonder if there's if that is a nature nurture thing.
I mean, I literally, I'm not I'm not a great dancer,
(14:01):
but from the time I was a little kid, I
could dance. Yeah, I mean I could. I'm I'm I'm not,
I'm not skilled whatever, but I can definitely hear with
the thing is supposed to be? What? What? What? What's
your feeling about that. I've never spoken to a ballet
dancer about that.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
So I'm a believer that anything is possible.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Okay, I don't.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I do.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I think that it may not look the way.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
That you you imagine it should look, but there's possibility
in growth if someone is exposed to it and and taught.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I mean, I've seen it. I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I've seen dancers that have grown immensely, like you know,
with the right focus and intention and nurturing people that
you know, it's like, I don't know if there's any
potential there, and then you know, I don't know how
many years later, but I do.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
I think it's possible, and you believe it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
It can all be taught. It can all be taught.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't know about all, but I think that everyone
can learn to dance to like the best of their ability.
But there can't there can be something learned and improvement made. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
So yeah, so everyone right now, get up, put on
Mariah Carey, yes, and get to.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You have if you have a body, If you have
a body, you can dance.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Well. Listen, I mean your heart beats in rhythm, right,
your heart's beat in rhythm. It should it should be
a natural it should be a natural thing. I was
reading that. I was reading that you performed. Did you
perform with Taylor Swift?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
That's wild, It was really Yeah, it was really an.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Incredible experience to perform with someone not only that you know,
talent and successful, but that's so gracious and grounded, that's
always like in a different way, in a different way,
in a different way. I mean, Prince I you know,
(16:14):
that's one of the closest collaborations that I've had with
another artist, and spent many many years working with him
on and off, and he just had such a confidence
and a way about him, and I think that a
lot of people didn't realize was how much he gave
back and mentored and was constantly looking for, you know,
(16:37):
someone young and up and coming that he could kind
of take under his wing. I didn't find this out
until after he had passed, but that he had been
following my career since I was about fourteen or fifteen
years old.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Wo.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, we ended.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Up collaborating for the first time. I think when I
was around twenty six twenty seven. He had been trying
to contact me and had been following my career. But
he's that way with a lot of young artists, and
it's amazing to be able to have access to someone
like him, with his experience and incredible gifts, and to
get to be on stage and perform with and see
(17:18):
it firsthandow and learn from a genius. So I I,
you know, attribute a lot of my growth as an
artist to the time that we spent working together.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Did you have a mentor was that with mentorship important?
I mean to you when you're when you're.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Coming up, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I Mean what's so interesting is that it's really built
in to the to the ballet structure, you know, so
much of the choreography and kind of notes and things
like that aren't really documented in writing, so a lot
of what we what we learn is pasted literally from
(18:00):
one mouth to the next. And so there's this kind
of built it in mentorship within the structure of how
how a ballet company or school works. And so my
first ballet teacher was definitely like that for me, and
it just became something that was natural for me to
kind of seek out.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Or be open to the idea of guidance.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Victoria Ral was probably one of the first people that
really took me under her wing. Actress, soap opera actress,
and she actually started out as a as a ballerina
at American Ballet Theater and Uh, to have someone who
has walked in those in my shoes, you know, as
(18:44):
a black woman in a ballet company where you don't
see anyone who looks like you like it was just
meant a lot just to sit down and see her,
hear the stories, have these conversations, and it's it's been
such a big part of my journey is just having
the mentors in my life.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
The first black prima ballerina in the history of ABT
which American ballet theater, which is something amazing to be
to be so proud of it only took them seventy
five years, but but you were it, and that's quite
an accomplishment. You know, you mentioned something which is fascinating
(19:25):
to me, and that is that, well, there's two pieces
of it. I mean back to I guess football is
on my mind, but back to you know, athletes they
use their bodies and they have to you know, sacrifice
their bodies in those kinds of ways. But what's going
on in their face? Maybe in baseball, but it is
(19:48):
basically not the story. It's all about this machine, whereas
in ballet that's a big, big piece. Is this lack
of a better word, acting component, you know, the emotional component.
It's not just you know, how well you hear the
(20:09):
music of portraiteaus or how high you leap any of
those things. And my question is you've performed, you know,
countless ballets that are choreographed, and the choreography I don't
even know if this is true, but it's written down correct,
like there's an actual notation or there's a way to
(20:31):
write it, like there is music of what the choreography is. Yes,
but are you how to what extent can you make choices?
So like the whole thing is is, you know, I
get a characters written down a page, but then it's
all about the choices that I make, and maybe the
choices that I make between take one and Take four,
(20:52):
or also that if I'm doing a play, the choices
that I'm gonna make on a Tuesday night or a
Wednesday afternoon change all the time. So I'm wondering, when
you're in the in the heat of it, how much
are those choices you're allowed to make.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, that's a great question. So there is dance notation,
but it's like such a rare art and we rarely
use it. But again, like I was saying, it's literally
just passed down from uh, from dancer to dancer and
whoever is whoever owns the ballet and sets the ballet,
so they literally sit you.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
In a room and dance from there.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, the choreographer is long long dead, so with a
lot of these ballets, so it's really passed on from
like ballerina to like that's that you know, it was
it was created on them and then it was passed
on to another ballerina to another Valerias. It's literally handed
down like that. But within that so you're you're taught
exact choreography that you have to do. Like there's there's
(21:50):
no real wiggle room within these, you know, ballets that
were created in like the late eighteen hundreds. But when
it comes to care, sure, like you do have a
choice in how you approach certain things. Also depending on
who's setting the ballet. So there are some some uh
(22:10):
former dancers that will come and have kind of ownership
over what the ballet will look like and and they
don't really give you a lot of space. But for
me personally, I have often done a lot of research
outside of the ballet company and gotten coaching in terms
(22:31):
of like theater acting outside of American Ballet theater, and
will make choices in the moment on stage when it's
too late for anyone to say anything to me.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, I like I like because there's no take too,
there's no take. That's that's that's the way to be.
I like I like that a lot. That's that's that's awesome.
Tell me about the Flowers movie. I mean, you're you
have you I love me just say You're doing so
many other things besides dancing films and books, and I
(23:05):
think children's books as well, and yeah, you know, all
kinds of the charitable work which we're going to get into.
But I'm curious about the Flowers movie.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, I mean it's a great segue in terms of
what we were just talking about, because what's been so
fascinating stepping into this space. So I have a production
company that I started with my best friend who is
a former ballerino.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
We met at American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Theater and she transitioned after only a year of dancing
professionally into writing and producing in television and that's what
she's been doing for almost twenty years. And so we
created this production company and.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
To transition into being creative.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
In this space, you know, I have so much I
have to take much more initiative, and I have much
more agency and creative power and freedom in a way that.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Like I never experienced in my field.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So with this, this is our first project that really
has come to fruition.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
It's a short film.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It's an art activism film all Flower and I produced
it and came up with the concept with our executive
producer and Nelson George and a star in it. And
you know, it was just such a unique experience for
me to be acting on camera without words. It's all
(24:29):
through I guess my type, movement and dance and you know,
the just the differences of what you need to do
when you're in front of a camera versus you know,
the Metropolitan Opera house and projecting to the top tier
of the theater. So that that experience was challenging, but also,
(24:55):
you know, I love to have like an artistic and
physical challenge.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So it was such a cool experience.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
But to use my art and to use my voice
in my platform to highlight and focus on a community
that at the time when we filmed it was during
the pandemic, was you know, is really struggling Oakland, California,
you know, gentrification in the housing crisis, and then homelessness
and houselessness in that community. So to be able to
(25:22):
shine a light, highlight the artists in that community and
tell a story that I think is important.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
For them was just a really, really cool experience.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I got to check that out. That sounds that sounds amazing.
I would love to see that.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
If you are inspired by today's episode, please join us
in supporting six degrees dot org by texting the word
Bacon to seven zero seven zero seven zero. Your gift
empowers us to continue to produce programs that highlight the
incredible work of everyday heroes, well also enabling us to
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Once again, text b a con to seven zero seven
(26:11):
zero seven zero or visit six degrees dot org to
learn more.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Okay, well, I think this is a good spot to
Welcome to the show, Karen Campbell. Karen is the executive
director of Misty's Foundation, the Misty Copeland Foundation. Hi, Karen,
thanks for being here today with us.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Hi Kevin, thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Tell us about be bold.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
It stands for Ballet Explorations, Ballet offers leadership development and
we're actually celebrating one year anniversary of this program and
it's after school for children five to twelve years old,
so there's a big age range to learn ballet an affordable,
(26:58):
accessible and fun way. So we have twelve week cycles
twice a week, one hour at each class, and it's
two teaching artists and a musician. And Misty had the
idea that she wanted it to be fun and for
kids to learn in a less traditional way, still structured,
(27:18):
but less traditional. So having African drums or bass guitar
player or keyboards, you know, we do across the board
like different instruments and they during the course of the class.
What's so amazing, and this is Misty's vision, was that
each class would start with community agreements, so the teaching
(27:40):
artists and the children would talk about how they're what
they want to have happen in the class, and what
shouldn't happen, so things that give them agency. Are they
feeling comfortable, Are they feeling welcomed? Are they feeling good?
To continue during the course of the class, and they'll
do a circle up in the beginning and talk about
(28:01):
how they're feeling, like am I feeling cloudy today? Am
I feeling sunny today? So that's how each class starts,
and it's really important for a couple of reasons. One,
kids during COVID had no opportunity for after school obviously
or for often expressing their feelings, especially this you know
(28:22):
community that we're working with, and then for them to
be able to work with these teaching artists and musicians
each the framework that we're we've created, we're calling it
a framework, not a curriculum, because we're basically flying the
plane as we're building it. And so we're working with
(28:44):
a child developmental psychologist and a DEIA consultant to determine
the best ways to work with these children who have
had trauma during before COVID, certainly during and now afterwards,
you know, finding a way to find their voice and
to feel like they have something that gives them structure.
(29:07):
To Misty's point, ballet has that ability to give structure
and kind of life for them outside of their lives,
the lives that they've had, and we know that after
school programming in particular, you know, they often don't have
that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
There's so much about that that I love. First off,
the fact that the Misty you talked about the experience
that you had and going into this ballet class and
trying to get a hold of the chaos in your
life and feeling that. I also think that I feel
(29:48):
like we don't even really have had We haven't even
quite reckoned with what COVID must have been like for
children and or can used to bay or whatever. My
brother's got God right now, you know, I don't know.
I I think that the it is so so interesting
(30:12):
to focus on on on that what that trauma is
and and having to deal with it, but also not
not just doing the dancing, but coming in and talking
about you know what, what what's going on for you
and what you want to do with that day. It's
it's all great. And I love the idea that there's
(30:32):
a live musician because you know, there's nothing you could
put on the best recording of an African drama and
it's just not going to be the same as the
way it feels to see someone hitting that thing in
the in the room. I mean, I think that's really
that sounds great. How do you how do you where
(30:54):
do you put these schools? How do you find the schools?
How does it spread?
Speaker 6 (30:59):
Well, you know, we started because Misty started at Boys
and Girls Club and has a relationship continuing relationship with them.
We started at Boys and Girls clubs in the Bronx
and in Harlem because they had the children they already
had after school. They often had the facility like a
dance studio that we could use and sometimes they even
(31:20):
had teaching artists that we can employ as well. So
that was the beginning of it and now in the
spring we had about set We're in seven sites now
this fall we're going to be in fourteen sites. So
we've grown kind of quickly, been in a very organic
and wonderful way, and through our network of we've been
(31:42):
advisory council of dance professionals, dance teachers, people who we
could go to in order to find these teaching artists,
and that's been the most amazing thing to be able
to grow it pretty quickly. One of the other things
that we found was that we needed it in the spring,
(32:02):
we found that we needed it to be more ballet focused,
and Nisty really thought that was important. So the way
the framework is set up now it's more ballet focused
instead of movement, but it also continues to be impactful.
So the developmental psychologist has done an impact study for
us already so that we can see what we're doing
(32:24):
right and what we need to improve. And one of
the things that we need to we're hoping to improve
is to get more boys involved in the program, which
you can imagine at the beginning of each session, the
program director, Cindy Folgar and I we go to each
site and talk to the caregivers so we get some
buy in so they understand what we're doing because often
(32:47):
you can imagine like ballet, what does that mean to
a lot of people in the community and certainly to boys.
But we were really lucky that this fall in our training.
We just did a three day training for our new
teaching artist. We have six men of color, which is amazing,
which means that we can have more outreach, hopefully for
boys in the community and just a way to explain
(33:09):
to them. When you're talking about Eli Manning, there's so
many I was just talking to Alan Houston, who's former
basketball player, one of his philanthropic people.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:21):
Well, I don't know if anyone everyone in your audience,
Oh good, good, good, But but we were talking about
how athletes, professional athletes really use ballet often and it's
something that it's important for, you know, young kids to understand.
So it's just a way to buy and for them
to understand their There are avenues too out for outreach
(33:43):
in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So it's the music.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
It's a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
That's great. I love that this is This is sounds
like such a such a such a great program. Were
you a dancer? How did you get involved? Did you
know each other?
Speaker 6 (33:57):
No? We it's we feel like I feel like I've
known her for whatever, and we've only known each other
for about six months. I've only been working at the foundation.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
It's only been six months.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Oh my gosh, it feels like a long time.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
Yeah. I was at Alvin Ailey before starting with Misty,
so I was there for eight years, which is an
amazing place. And actually my son when you talk about
going a wedding, my son danced at a Ley before
I worked there.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh wow, wow, yeah, okay, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It was, you know, really important for me to to
find a team that was diverse, and it was really
important that I had a CEO, you know, an executive
director that was there was a woman of color, and
to find Carr. I mean, everyone at Alvin a Lee
comes up to me and they're like, why did you
take her from us? And I'm like, sorry, guys, we're
(34:53):
doing we're doing important work too. But you know, it's
really important that the people that the children are seeing
that they can see themselves through through the people that
are in these leadership positions. And you know, in starting
this program, it's like I wanted to take again what
I was saying earlier, like ballet at its core and
(35:15):
all the incredible elements of it and strip away all
of the other stuff that has created, i think even
just in like film and media and television, this negative
connotation and these negative tropes about what it is and
get back to what it can do for a human
being and what it can do for a child and
(35:35):
what it did for me. And so you know, it's
important that we built a framework that made sense for
these communities. So we're not bringing this traditional European art
form into these black and brown communities, but we're creating
it and really curating it for them. So it's music,
it's musicians, it's teaching artists to look like them. It's
(35:56):
talking about the history, the black and brown history that
we're not taught in, that we don't see in ballet
history books, so that these dancers can say like, oh,
there have been people that look like me who do this.
There have been men, there have been black men that
have done this and have been successful. So all of
those elements were really important, and in the end, it
(36:18):
was like, we need to make this fun because again
it's like this this idea that ballet is boring and
ballet is slow, and getting back to like using this
technique and bringing people together in a community through movement
and making it fun for them.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's that's fantastic you mentioned, and I'm curious about this
that you have learned or decided to slide the program
a little bit away from just movement and more towards ballet.
So I'm just curious about that specifically.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, you know, initially when we started out, we partnered
up with an incredible organization called India, the National Dance
Institute that was founded by former principal dancer of New
York City Ballet, Jacques dem Bois, and he really created
(37:14):
this incredible fun way of introducing dance to kids in
school in this incredible fun way and an amazing structure.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
And so I went to them and I was like,
how do we do this with ballet?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And you know, in our in our first you know, pilot,
it was definitely kind of thin on the ballet and
much more about creating this fun movement environment.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
And you know, once.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I saw it on several classes, I realized that we
could still have that concept, but to insert a little
bit more structure of the ballet technique so that if
these dancers, any of them, wanted to go on and
go into a school, a professional school, they would have
a really legitimate ballet base to work from, so that
(38:03):
it wasn't you know that they were saying, oh, I
was in this ballet class, and their Misty copelit, and
then they don't really have any any real language and
idea of the technique. And and we've found that we
can combine all of those things. It's amazing what we
can fit in in an hour as well.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Let me ask you both this, what is it about, uh,
you know, reaching out two kids to give them uh uh,
this kind of these kinds of outlets, to to mentor
to give them an opportunity to do something outside of
what what their their life or their environment. What is
(38:43):
it that you think was in both of your upbringings
that kind of steered you towards wanting to do this
kind of work? Karen, Karen, I'll.
Speaker 6 (38:54):
Start Yeah, no, no, go ahead, Karen, I have said
to Misty when I got this job. I have had
very a varied career. I started out film production, and
I actually like my first.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Major movie was uh, Spike Lee's Malcolm X.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
And I was a production.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Coordinator, So auspicious beginning.
Speaker 6 (39:20):
Yeah, Well, I worked a paramount for a few years before,
but that was my first production cordator job.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
But to have the uh to have the experience of
working in the film, and especially when I was in
it at that time for women, it was very challenging
and to be a person of color and then ending
up going into fundraising and ultimately ending up with Nisty
and this foundation.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
To me, it was it's it's a.
Speaker 6 (39:52):
Huge thing to be able to give children this idea
that there are things that you can do outside of
your world. We're going to show you what that looks like,
and that we can really open up a world for
them that they wouldn't have And I feel like that
is so important. That's so meaningful when you go in
today's classes and we haven't only been teaching them about dance,
(40:15):
but we've started getting tickets for different things, for them
to have the opportunities with their families to go see
different performances and to get out in the wide, wider world,
which I think for so many kids coming from where
they come from, it's really important.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Love that.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Yeah, I mean I've been on the receiving end of
that for you know, so much of my childhood in
terms of like having teachers that invested in me and
what it's done for me, and so it's it's like
a no brainer. It's like, oh, I need to do this,
Like I've had that experience and I've seen what it's
(40:55):
done for me, and I feel like I've been given
this opportunity and this platform in order to go back
into these communities and give them what I've learned and
what I've experienced. And yeah, it's just again, it's like
a no brainer to be able to continue that cycle
(41:19):
because of all the incredible things I've gained by being
exposed to this art form and having incredible teachers and
mentors along the way.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's awesome. I love that, you know. It's funny. I
hadn't even thought about this when I was getting ready
for this episode. But when I was a kid, well
it was probably about the probably about fourteen or fifteen,
I got a summer scholarship to this thing called the
(41:49):
Pennsylvania Governor School for the Arts, where you auditioned and
then you went out to this you know thing for
a few weeks in the summer you could study art.
And one of the one of the arts they had
was they had music and they had acting, of course,
I was there for the acting and one of the
arts they had was ballet, and I made friends with
(42:12):
this kid who was a ballet dancer. In fact, I
think that summer he decided to become a ballet dancer.
I don't think he'd ever done it. He was he
was an athlete, and you know, and just like took
to it. And he got a scholarship to the Pennsylvania
Ballet and came back and lived in my house. My mom.
(42:37):
My mom took him in and he lived in my
house for that entire year while he studied at the
Pennsylvania Ballet. And I hadn't really thought about this, but
you know, I think up to that point, I hadn't
really thought of that. You know, I kind of thought
of it as something that girls do basically, you know
(42:59):
what I mean, you know, that's that was that's kind
of the thing. I mean, you were mentioning not only
having uh men, but but men of color be there
and and be visible and and and you know, be
seen and with all that strength and grace and you know,
and and it really did actually it was pretty it was.
(43:22):
It kind of you know, stuck with me. And and
I think it in some ways, you know, probably adjusted
my ideas of what what a dance is or what
a dancer is. I didn't know anything about ballet. I
mean I to me, ballet was you know, just not
something that was on my radar me. But but that's
that's that's great that you guys are doing that. I
(43:43):
think it sounds like a fantastic program. How can people
learn about it or reach out or or or help
you know, this is this is the moment for the
call to action to go to.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
Our website and you can read more, learn a little
more about or contact if you want to learn more.
Come to see a class, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
We love to have you come and see a class.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I would love to come see a class. I really
would honestly, Oh my.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Gosh, we would love that.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Follow us on Instagram as well, Missy Copeland Foundation, Right,
that would be fun.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I was wondering if you ever had people come check
it out.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, we have guests, so it would be awesome to
yeah to.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Have you all right, just don't expect me to show
anybody any moves. That ship is sale.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Right down to all right, Thank you guys so much,
thanks for being here. It's great talking with you.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Thank you so much for your time. It's been fantastic.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six
Degrees with Kevin Bacon. If you want to learn more
about the Misty Copeland Foundation and all the work that
they are up to, head over to their website Misty
Copelandfoundation dot org. Mistycopeland Foundation dot org. You define all
the links in our show notes. If you like what
(45:10):
you hear, make sure you subscribe to the show. To
this show, tune into the rest of our episodes. I
think you're gonna like them. You can find Six Degrees
with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. I'll see you next time.
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