Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina (29 page)

When the Ballet Russe toured the South, Raven had contended with the Ku Klux Klan’s threats. Because of the whispers of racially tinged violence, she eventually had to leave the
company and move to Holland to find a home where she could dance again. I wept as I watched her story. But I also knew now that I was not alone as a black ballerina and had been fortunate to walk a far less treacherous path.

I spoke about Raven so often that my manager, Gilda Squire, decided to do some research. She discovered that Raven was still very much alive, living in an apartment only a couple of blocks away from me on the Upper West Side. I felt this was a sign that we were supposed to meet and be there for each other.

Gilda reached out to Raven and learned that she had followed my career from its onset, watching all of my TV interviews and reading many of the articles about me. I was moved and surprised.

Finally, Gilda set up an event at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It would be a public conversation between two generations of black ballerinas: Raven and me. The first time I ever spoke to Raven, we were not even in the same room. We participated in a live radio interview to promote the Studio Museum event, and I got very emotional, just hearing her voice. We finally met only a couple of minutes before we took the stage together for the conversation in Harlem. I burst into tears and hugged her tightly. She was so small, delicate, and beautiful.

We have stayed in touch ever since. She attends all of my performances, and we’ll often go out afterward for a meal. Even before I was able to meet her, she had been a guiding light in my life, and now she constantly, selflessly encourages me to go further than she ever could. She often says I have so much more ability and talent than she did, which I find hard to believe. She is humble, hilarious, and so full of funny, poignant tales that
she never repeats one. We speak the same very rare language: that of a black classical ballet dancer.

I think part of my purpose as an African American ballerina is to share Raven’s story and educate people on our history within the ballet world. Not just Raven, but Aesha Ash, Alicia Graf Mack, Lauren Anderson, Tai Jimenez, and the myriad other black swans who have enriched the world of ballet but who have often not gotten their due. I feel a strong connection to them all. It isn’t easy for us in this world. Ballet is still a career that requires either a lot of luck (which I had) or a lot of money (which I didn’t have). In addition to impeccable training and emotional support. And as you climb, it can be lonely and terrifying to look around and see no one else who resembles you. Aesha, Tai, and especially Raven made me feel less alone.

IN A BALLET COMPANY,
you often have to compete with your friends, your peers, for the same role. That’s never easy. But to compete on an uneven playing field is even more psychologically exhausting.

I remember that awful, empty feeling in my gut when I walked into a rehearsal with a ballet mistress, knowing that she had already made up her mind about who I was and what I was capable of. I could always tell. Having to put on a face of confidence, knowing that I would most likely not be cast, no matter how well I performed, taxed me emotionally. As did feeling that I sometimes had to defend who I was.

“But we don’t think of you as black” was the refrain from some of my peers when I made a small attempt to open up
about my concerns that I had a harder time getting some classical roles, or getting recognition for some of my performances.

Of course they were trying to be nice, empathetic even. Instead, it just made me wonder,
Well, how do you see black people in general if you believe
not
thinking of me that way is a compliment?

But I kept on dancing and practicing and performing. I got stronger in every way. And I can’t describe how it feels when you finally get someone to focus on your talent and not the superficiality of the package you come in.

Three years ago, I was playing the part of Puss in Boots in
Sleeping Beauty.
The makeup person was standing at the ready with her container of powder to turn my face white.

I looked at her. “I don’t understand why the cats have to be white,” I said defiantly. “I want to be a brown cat.”

And so I was.

IN 2007, KEVIN MCKENZIE
nominated me to be one of two ABT dancers to represent the company in the famous Erik Bruhn Competition.

The artistic directors of the four top ballet companies in the world—ABT, the Royal Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, and the National Ballet of Canada—each select their top young dancers to take part.

I believe that Kevin has always thought I had something extra, and that’s why he gave me every scholarship, fellowship, or workshop opportunity he could offer, from the Coca-Cola Scholarship that paid for my training my final year in Southern California to my selection to compete for the Princess Grace
prize. And now this. He was giving me the chance to step up and become a principal on the stage.

My fellow corps member Jared Matthews and I would compete on ABT’s behalf, with the hope of winning. I was relieved to have Jared, my friend and frequent
pas de deux
partner, by my side.

Three days before the competition in Canada, I hurt myself in rehearsal executing one of my jumps. I was preparing to dance the part of the jumping girl in
Swan Lake’
s
pas de trois,
which I would perform on tour with ABT right after we returned from across the border. I was told that I had a stress reaction in my metatarsal. I was panicked and devastated, but determined to push through. I took the next day off, then returned to the ABT studios to see if I would be able to dance.

As I opened the door to the dressing room, I saw an unfamiliar suitcase sitting in the center of the room. No one had told me that another girl from the company was prepared to go in my place, but that was the message I received, startling and clear. I knew I had to pull it together. There was no way I was going to miss my chance. That night, despite the pain and nervousness I felt, I decided to go to Canada and compete.

There Jared and I danced the
Grand Pas de Deux
from
Sleeping Beauty
that I’d performed so many times with ABT’s Studio Company. We also danced a contemporary piece, an excerpt from
Petite Mort
, choreographed by Jirí Kylián.

The other dancers from the other three companies were, surprisingly, friendly. I think we were all united knowing what an honor it was to be selected by our respective directors to compete, and also feeling the pressure of performing on such a grand stage. I was particularly anxious about our piece from
Sleeping Beauty.
I think I was told so often at ABT that I excelled in more contemporary roles that I felt a little intimidated taking on such an iconic, classical part.

I gave my best performance yet that night. In the end, we lost the competition. But I won the greater prize.

A few weeks later, after I’d returned home, Kevin asked me to come see him.

He had decided, at last, to make me a soloist. Kevin told me that the night of the Erik Bruhn Competition was the first time he saw me as a true ballerina.

I would be the first black soloist with ABT in twenty years. It was a historic breakthrough.

But hearing his words, I felt surprisingly calm. It wasn’t at all the way I had imagined it since the age of thirteen.

In that dream, I dropped to my knees in tears, thanking Kevin from the bottom of my heart. Now that it was real, after fighting so hard for so long, through years of doubt, I finally believed that I deserved this.

Still, I recognized then and now that Kevin had been behind me from the start, pushing me to grow, to mature, to excel. Giving me, so unlikely a ballerina, the chance to stand at center stage and be the face of one of the most distinguished dance companies in the world is something I will forever be grateful for.

I had waited six long years, and now I was ready, not just to show the world that I was a gifted dancer but that I was a true artist as well.

IN JUNE 2011, I
would join the likes of Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington, Cuba Gooding Jr., Smokey Robinson, Magic Johnson, and Sugar Ray Leonard, among other accomplished Boys and Girls Clubs of America alumni, to participate in a PSA that would run as an inspirational commercial for the clubs.

As a ballerina, we don’t often feel the benefits of a lifetime of hard work and determination put into our craft. But to come from such an organization, and to be surrounded by people who excel in their arts, and started out just like you, whom you look up to and then are recognized next to, is really cool. The cast mingled very casually, like we were old friends. I guess all being club kids, we felt connected. Denzel shared with me a great story. As a youngster in New York, he took any and every opportunity to be on or near a stage, so when the Metropolitan Opera House needed curtain boys, he jumped at the chance. He ended up pulling the curtain back for Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov in a production with ABT. Kerry expressed her interest in supporting me and ballet and was incredibly friendly.

In 2012, I traveled to San Diego to be inducted into the Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame.

Liz and Dick Cantine were there, as well as my mother. And Cindy and Patrick were in attendance.

Beforehand, the staff at the Boys and Girls Club asked if I wanted to invite Cindy. I told them yes, absolutely. I’d seen the Bradleys here and there over the years.

But the Boys and Girls Club ceremony was the first time we’d all been together under one roof—Mommy, the Cantines, the Bradleys—since the ugly battle over my emancipation.

Cindy was among the many I thanked in my acceptance speech for bringing me to ballet. I don’t think I’d ever really thanked her before. It was well deserved.

I was so proud that they were all there—Mommy, and Liz and Dick, and Patrick and Cindy—that we had overcome this huge trauma and could celebrate what had come before it and what had happened since. What a great thing, that I could be on this stage at the Boys and Girls Club, where I first touched the barre, and that they could all experience the triumph with me!

I felt so happy making that speech. I looked out at their beaming faces, and I wasn’t nervous at all.

Chapter 13

WHEN I WAS A
little girl, I lived in terror of being judged, of letting others down. I was the people pleaser. I diligently made sure everyone got to class on time when I was a hall monitor. I was the first to volunteer to run errands, to clean the table, to help my brothers and sisters.

When my brothers and sisters would grouse about Mommy’s boyfriends, or even about Mommy herself, I would hold my tongue. I would rather sit in an empty hallway, listening to my own echo, than risk being late to class. And when I lived with Cindy and was still in public school, I’d make a tent with my bedspread and use a flashlight to study for tests late into the night.

Then I chose an unlikely path. I became a ballerina. And that meant being judged all the time.