Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina

Misty Copeland opens her memoir on the morning of her premier performance as the Firebird in Stravinsky’s ballet Firebird. The Prologue describes Misty’s morning routine of ballet practice in New York City and her concerns for the night’s performance as she suffers from pain and injury in her left leg. She reflects on the significance of being the first African American woman to perform the title role of the Firebird for the American Ballet Theatre. She repeats to herself, “[T]his is for the little brown girls” (5). As she steps out onto the stage for her performance, she focuses on the mentors and advocates who have helped her along the way and tries to ignore the pain in her shin. Then the music begins.

Misty is born in Kansas City, the youngest of four children of her mother, Sylvia DelaCerna, and her father, Doug Copeland. When Misty is two years old, Sylvia leaves her husband and moves with her children to California. Misty has no memories of her father as a child and does not see him again until she is an adult. In California, they meet Harold, the man Sylvia has left her husband for and whom Misty thinks of as her father throughout her childhood.