- Misty Copeland is making history. During American Ballet Theatre's current season at the Metropolitan Opera House, Copeland will alight on that storied Lincoln Center stage, making her New York debut as the Swan Queen in the iconic masterpiece Swan Lake - a crowning achievement for any dancer, regardless of the color of her skin.
- Arts education is a big part of building a 21st century creative mind, and I think that we have let way too many kids lose their way by not drawing in their young minds with music, dance, painting and the other various ways we can express those things we do not have words for.
- I believe strongly in the power of arts education to engage and empower young people.
- I don't want to be one of those people who have the best part of their life be 'back when. I'm walking into a void, but I have to make the motion and walk into it. I need to live in new shoes and not be a dancer.
- I stayed too long for myself and for my dancing.
- "As a dancer, Heather was wiry and weird and didn't dance in a usual fashion. She could do classical things, lyrical things. You couldn't categorize her." --Peter Martins
- Ballet gets passed down. Peter Martin's was Balanchine's apprentice. Now Peter hands Damian things to do. You could say, 'For Damian, it's not enough in a day just to dance -- his mind's too active.' But you could also say this is the start of Damian's apprenticeship.
- Balanchine made me dance. He would say, "Don't be reverent about my ballets; just dance".
- There were some years where I danced three ballets every night, year after year. It did not feel like too much at the time. But what's happened with me, I think, is I never had an injury where I was forced off the stage and had to fight my way back. If I had, I might have come to appreciate for a longer period of time the ability one has to dance. And I might have been a little more disciplined about keeping to the actual rigors of the training. I think, quite frankly, this has been reflected in some of my performances in the last few years. I just couldn't get into class every day and pump it out. And I know I've not always been in the best shape I can be. I didn't push myself. I didn't push to keep my jump. Like with Dewdrop. More than five years ago, I felt, you know what? I don't want the kids to look at this and think this is my Dewdrop. Could I have pushed and really worked on it? I could, but emotionally I couldn't because I had done it so much.
- The dancing came so easily; I'd have a fight with my boyfriend, then do a matinee.
- A certain amount of anger comes with being self-involved. And I became less self-involved.
- Peter wanted me to stay for the Balanchine Celebration [in 1993] and Jock needed time to get used to dancing with other partners. I kept saying, 'I'm doing this for Jock or the Balanchine Celebration.' But what I recently realized was that I needed a couple years to say good-bye for myself.
- "If I want to see a good ballet, it would be a lot cheaper to see it in New York".
- I have always believed that those that have been given a lot need to share in all areas of life. Both my mother and Mr. Balanchine were very civic minded and empathetic and it was a wonderful example and environment to be raised around, first at home in southern California and then later on at NYCB. I believe strongly in the power of arts education to engage and empower young people.
- The really big things about me I've been steered away from. It's caused me a great deal of mental anguish. I don't know what they expected to achieve. Did I cry? Did I feel publicly humiliated? Yes. Did I feel this was terribly unfair for people like my parents to read, who couldn't possibly understand what this venom was about? Yeah. And I always felt it was very unfair of them to take out the loss of Balanchine in their lives on us who really did lose him. I really don't think for a writer at Seven Minutes, or whatever those magazines are called, the loss was as important as for people like Peter and Suzanne and Kyra and myself. Or for the next generation or the generation that never saw him. I guess they felt the company should simply cease and desist after Balanchine. I don't see any reason for that to have happened, although there are days, I'm sure, when Peter's like, 'Please, cease and desist.'
- Gelsey [Kirkland] was of my generation, but she chose to pursue the old world, the Giselles and the Don Q's. I came from California, from a politically free time and from parents who let me and my brothers and sister go our diverse ways. I didn't want to be standing there onstage, taking a rose out of my bouquet. If I had gone to the Royal Ballet or ABT, I probably would not have danced because it wouldn't have suited me. There's a lot of 'not dancing' in those old ballets.
- "When Peter and I talk, it's very simple. We grew up together. We think alike. We don't have very much to say because nothing really has to be said. Does he ask my advice on how to run his company? No. Does it come up in conversation sometimes? Yes. Do I run the New York City Ballet? No! Would I do a couple of things differently? Yeah, I would. I used to be much more of a sounding board.Now when we talk, it's 'How's your house? How's your day? What are you thinking?' Peter has a lot of problems that come across his desk, and when I spent my time with him, I heard about them. Now he prefaces everything with, 'This is where I'm at.' There's a lot of love between us, and everybody can probably tell that. But he's married now and has a wife, and we have separate lives in a way we never had before. What Watts seems to want most now is to bow out of the company and the ballet world. The people around me know how desperately I want to get out.
- I have always believed that those that have been given a lot need to share in all areas of life.
- The dancing came so easily; I'd have a fight with my boyfriend, then do a matinee. I could do Agon and Bugaku, but I couldn't really do the ballet stuff. But I was never really big on taking class. And now, I just want it all to end."
- With her grace and grit, and the will to lead change, Misty Copeland is truly a ballerina for our time.
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