'It's as if I've been reborn': Misty Copeland begins a next chapter in 'a new body'
toggle caption Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP
It's not easy watching your body change over the years, but professional ballerina Misty Copeland says: "I love a challenge."
"It's a beautiful thing, to be able to see your body change, to acknowledge that it's changed and that it is different, and that you value movement in a different way," Copeland explains. Practicing classical ballet technique after having her son in 2022, she says: "It's as if I've been reborn and I have a new body to try it through."
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Copeland took her final bow with American Ballet Theatre in October, after spending years away from performance.
In 2015, Copeland made history as the first Black woman to become a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre. It was the culmination of a journey that began, not in a traditional ballet academy, but in a Boys & Girls Club gym in Los Angeles, where a shy teenager first discovered what her body could say through movement.
"Being onstage was the first time that I felt safe in my young li
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