If you’re a novice dancer, Misty Copeland has one simple piece of advice: find joy.
The 43-year-old trailblazing ballerina opened up to People magazine recently about what she hopes the next generation of dancers can grasp.
“Try to find the joy,” she told the outlet just hours before taking her final bow. “It’s one of the hardest things in the world to do, but you have to remember the joy and why you do it.”
On Wednesday, Oct. 22, Copeland closed out a historic, nearly three-decade career — one that saw her become the first Black female principal dancer in American Ballet Theatre’s history. Her last performance, held at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York before a star-studded audience that included the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Debbie Allen, featured three numbers, including a scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” Kyle Abraham’s “Wrecka Stow,” and Twyla Tharp’s “Sinatra Suite.”
During her remarks at the time, Winfrey said, “Every once in a generation, someone comes along who just doesn’t master their craft. They shift the very atmosphere around it. She redefined who belongs, who gets to be seen, and who gets to lead. When Misty became the first black female principal dancer in American Ballet Theater’s 75-year history, it wasn’t just a milestone; it was a mirror held up to generations who had never seen themselves reflected in the center of the frame. She redefined an image that had gone unchanged for too long.”
But her final night onstage wasn’t a goodbye to ballet itself — just a formal farewell to ABT. While she plans to continue empowering the next generation through her foundation, which works to expand access and representation for young dancers of color, she told “Good Morning America” that performing will remain part of her life in many forms.
“For me, this is really a farewell and a goodbye to American Ballet Theater that has really given me the space and the platform to be able to become who I’ve become,” she explained. “It’s the end of a lot of these folding classical works, but I want to continue performing, and ballet will remain a part of my life and everything that I do through the books I write, speaking, film, everything.”
In her first performance since retiring, Copeland joined Cynthia Erivo for a special rendition of “No Good Deed” from the “Wicked: For Good” soundtrack. In the two-minute clip, she glides across the floor in a sparkly dress that falls into a sheer skirt and pointe shoes, spinning through dizzying pirouettes and lifting into dramatic relevés that punctuate Erivo’s soaring vocals.
