Misty Copeland Will Take Her Final Bow

On Wednesday night, Misty Copeland will tie the ribbons on her pointe shoes, gracefully spin and twirl and delight audiences at Lincoln Center and around the world. But just for one last time: Copeland, the first Black female principal at the American Ballet Theater and one of the art form’s biggest crossover stars, is retiring after 25 years with the company.

Her retirement is, in many ways, not surprising. Copeland, 43, has been away from the stage for five years, focusing on her family and working with her namesake organization, the Misty Copeland Foundation, which aims to bring greater diversity, equity and inclusion to the dance world.

Copeland has worked hard to pry open the white world of ballet to Black and brown communities. As she told The New York Times Magazine in June when she announced her retirement, her whole career “is proof that when you have diversity, people come together and want to understand each other and want to be a community together.”

“So many young Black and brown people didn’t even know Lincoln Center was a place they could step foot in,” she said.

A late bloomer for a ballerina, Copeland didn’t seriously pursue the art form until she was 13.

Copeland eventually joined Ballet Theater in 2001, and after a yearslong climb, she became the first Black woman to be named a principal dancer with the company, in 2015.

Paul Taylor’s “Company B.” Copeland’s meteoric rise was not just as a dancer but also as an ambassador for diversity in dance and the advancement of Black performers in ballet.

She helped to pave the way for dancers of color to rise at ballet companies and schools around the country. Her profile also rose in pop culture. She performed with Prince during his “Welcome 2 America” tour, seen here at Madison Square Garden in 2011.

Copeland’s retirement is not unexpected. She has been away from the stage for five years, focusing on her family and working with her namesake organization, the Misty Copeland Foundation, which aims to bring greater diversity, equity and inclusion to the dance world.

In 2015 Copeland was the first Black woman to dance the double lead role of Odette-Odile in American Ballet Theater’s “Swan Lake.”

She told The New York Times Magazine in June that “in all honesty, I’ve wanted to fade away into the background, which is not really possible. The legacy of what I’ve created, the way that I’m carrying so many stories of Black dancers who have come before me — I can’t just disappear.”

Beyond ballet, Copeland also took on the role of Ivy Smith in the Broadway musical “On the Town” for a limited run in 2015.

Copeland in the title role of Ballet Theater’s “Firebird” in 2016.

In the lead role of “Giselle,” with Herman Cornejo, in 2018. Copeland said in June that “ballet was this perfect missing piece in my life,” adding that the art form “opened me up and helped me to understand myself more.”

In 2020, Copeland performed a tribute to the Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich. Regarding her final performance this week, Copeland told The Times Magazine, “I want to enjoy myself in this final bow with American Ballet Theater.”