"Here comes the diversity" I think when I drop my Asian daughter off at dance some nights.
She is often the only person of color in her class, school and sometimes even at large competitions. It was true when she studied Irish Step or went to a Feis and it's true now that she does ballet, tap, jazz and lyrical.
When I look for dance ornaments or dance-related trinkets, they are almost always Caucasian and I don't buy them.
Maybe that will change now that there is a Misty Copeland Barbie doll out. Copeland, the first African American woman to be a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, helped design the doll.
(The full story written by Stephanie Hallett is on the Ms. Magazine blog. Here's an excerpt: Copeland, who has been called “an unlikely ballerina,” grew up in Los Angeles—the daughter of a single mom of six—and didn’t get her start as a dancer until age 13 (most ballerinas begin dancing around age 3 or 4). As an African American with a body type that’s considered “curvy” in ballet, she battled deep-rooted stereotypes about what it means to be a dancer throughout her career—but triumphantly rose to the top.
Comments (0)