Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland

By -
Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland


                I remember when I was younger hearing about a Debbie Allen production of The Nutcracker. I was very young and had never been to a ballet before but I was intrigued. Debbie Allen was a famous African American dancer and choreographer and her production, The Chocolate Nutcracker, would have an African American cast. I never got to see that ballet and I hadn’t thought about it since. So imagine my surprise when reading Misty Copeland’s memoir Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina realizing that she was the lead dancer in that very same ballet I had heard of as a little girl. I was shocked and yet amazed that a young girl that was raised in San Pedro, California, not far from where I was raised in Los Angeles, was now an author and an acclaimed soloist for the American Ballet Theatre in New York.
                Misty Copeland came from humble beginnings and an unstable childhood. Her mother was forever the wanderer and would move herself and her six children from one man to the next over Misty’s childhood. It was by chance that Misty stumbled into ballet at the age of thirteen, only to soon be hailed as a prodigy for her natural talent. The road wasn’t easy and it was filled with public ridicule, a stint in court and doubts because of her race and yet she endured. She still dances today. She is now garnering more recognition than ever because her movement up the ABT ranks and her Under Armor endorsements.

                Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina is a memoir that brings light to what life as an African American dancer really is. Copeland has been under a spotlight since she began dancing and her race unfortunately has always played role in how people have viewed her. She has either been applauded for impeccable style and flawless technique or ridiculed for her shape and skin tone. Copeland endures and continues to fight. This memoir exposes what that fight has been like her entire life. It explains why she fights so hard to make history and to be the brown ballerina that many try not to recognize. This memoir was well written and poignant. She was honest about her relationships, her family, her upbringing and her persistence. The injuries that threaten to break her and the criticism that tried to take her hard work away. I was amazed while reading about her story. I had never known what the fight was like for her and I was glad I had taken the time to read her amazing story. I can definitely recommend this memoir and give it 4 out of 5 stars. It is a memoir of courage and progress and the forcing of change. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steve Johnson

By -
Image
Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steve Johnson Bringing to life the story of a notorious pirate to a modern audience isn’t an easy task. We’re too used to the comfort of easy travel, the mythos of pirates and the commercialized imagery produced by movies and television. Images of Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver have been part of entertainment for so long that the idea of true piracy and all it’s ruthlessness has almost been washed away. It isn’t until you’re able to wash away the false images and submerge yourself into the actual history that you can see piracy for it’s truly brutal nature. It also brings up many questions about governments, laws, corporations, scandal, colonization and other factors that allowed piracy to flourish and exist in the manner that it did for so long. Piracy didn’t exist in a bubble. Enemy of All Mankind takes the story of one pirate, who helped usher in the Golden Age of Piracy, and exa
Read more

Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest by Ian Zack

By -
Image
Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest by Ian Zack          In my case it is always the image of Odetta that comes to mind when I hear her name. The tall, undeniably Black woman, hair in an afro, guitar in hand. It must be that I simply did not know enough about her life, her struggle, and even her music to convey more than that image. But her image is memorable and her presence something not easily described. This book fills in the gaps in the story of Odetta that I didn’t know. Looking back at my childhood, her most memorable songs are the ones I’ve known most of my life, singing in my school’s chapel along with hundreds of other Black students, the words having meaning that I can only truly comprehend decades later as a Black woman.          Zack takes his time with this biography, letting the readers learn as much about Odetta as we do the time from whence she came. Her migration from Alabama to California, her feelings of coming from a loveless, forced marriage,
Read more

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

By -
Image
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood I’m going to cut right to the chase. This book is well written but we didn’t need it. I expected more. I wanted more and this fell flat. I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale , more than once, and I genuinely enjoyed it. The single narrative of Offred lent itself to the story well and it was genuinely a terrifying society. I watched the first two series of the show and though I have my reservations about it, I still thought it was a good show. It does a great job answering questions that the book could not because of its singular narrative. It filled out the world. This book revolves around three narratives: Aunt Lydia, who we know had a helping hand in stripping women of their sense of self and molded them to be controlled by the men of Gilead; Agnes, raised in Gilead with a Commander as father, privileged and set to marry well; and Daisy, a teenager raised in Canada hating Gilead and the abuses women endured that she’s learned about since she
Read more