The Roots of Resilience | Misty Copeland | TED

The first night I danced "The Firebird" at American Ballet Theater, I wasn't yet a principal dancer. I was still a soloist, 12 years into the company, carrying the weight of roles I had dreamed of but not yet been given. My body was in agony. For weeks, I had ignored the deep, aching pain in my leg, convincing myself that it would somehow just go away. But this wasn't just an opportunity for me. It felt bigger than that. I was the first Black woman to perform this role in ABT's history. Dancing "The Firebird" for me was a chance to honor the generations of Black dancers who came before me, dancers who never made it to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. It was a chance to prove that future generations could stand on that stage, and it could be theirs, too. I wasn't going to let pain steal that. The house was sold out. The energy in the room was undeniable. But the real power was in the people who showed up. It was the most diverse audience the Met had ever seen for a ballet performance. (Applause) People of every background gathered to witness a Black woman step into the title role in a space that had rarely welcomed anyone who looked like me before. They weren't just there for a show, they were there for everyone who had ever been told, "You don't belong here." Everyone who had ever been knocked down or discouraged from pursuing their dream. As I stepped onto the stage, the cheers were so loud, I could barely hear the orchestra. Because in that moment, what had always felt impossible, was now inevitable. The next morning, I couldn't get out of bed. Every step sent lightning through my leg. The test results revealed what I had tried to will away. Six stress fractures in my tibia. I had danced an entire performance on a broken leg. Now it's hard to explain the mix of emotions I felt. Pain, yes, but also pride. Fear and an unexpected calm that washed over me knowing I had poured everything I had into that role. In giving it my all, I recognized that it was never only about me. And in that moment, I understood something essential. Resilience isn't about being unbreakable. It isn't about pretending the pain isn't there. It's about moving through the pain with purpose, steadying yourself when the ground shifts beneath you, and holding on to calm long enough to keep going. A lesson I would need again and again. That clarity was a far cry from my childhood, where nothing felt certain. My mother raised six of us kids, largely on her own, and for much of my childhood we didn't have a home. We bounced around from motels, sleeping on friends’ couches, never sure if there would be food on the table, never knowing if we were going to have to change schools the next day. So as a child, I just assumed everyone had what I craved the most. The one thing that felt so out of reach for me. And that was stability. I kept people at a distance. I didn't want anyone to know what we were going through at home. I carried this quiet shame and this loneliness, so heavy that I barely spoke. I mean, my nickname was Mouse. I suffered from fierce migraines that would stop me dead in my tracks. And then at 13, late by every standard, I touched a ballet bar for the first time. It wasn't in a studio. It was on a basketball court at the San Pedro Boys and Girls Club, in my gym clothes and socks. But the moment my hand rested there on that bar, something shifted inside me. For the first time, my body released its tension. The music, the movement, the discipline, it all gave me consistency.

A rhythm to hold on to. My migraines disappeared. My posture straightened. My confidence began to flicker awake. Ballet made me feel alive and like I had purpose. It gave me stability when nothing else around me was stable. It taught me how to quiet the storm inside me and how to channel pain into artistry. It gave me the resilience to survive and, in time, truly thrive. But ballet was not always the safe place I hoped it would be. I was the only Black woman in a company of more than 80 dancers. And for all the stability and belonging I had discovered early on in ballet, I also had to face the reality that this art form, shaped centuries ago in European courts, was not originally intended for people who looked like me. In my third year as a corps de ballet member, the decision was made to exclude me from a filmed production of "Swan Lake" because I was told my brown skin would disrupt the aesthetic. Hearing those words cut deeper than I can describe. In a single sentence, everything I loved about ballet, the beauty, the discipline, the stability it had given me was turned against me. I stood in the studio, surrounded by my peers, but I felt utterly invisible. I went home devastated, questioning whether this was truly a place for me to be in this world of ballet that I had dedicated myself to. And yet the next morning, I came back to the studio. And not because I felt strong, but because I feared if I walked away, the door might close forever and not just for me, but for anyone who might follow. Resilience in that moment was not grand. It was quiet. It was showing up again even when my heart was broken. More than a decade later, it was that same ballet, that damn "Swan Lake," that gave me one of the most powerful moments of my career. A triumph built on the resilience I had relied on long before, back when showing up despite setbacks felt impossible. I was given the opportunity to perform the Swan Queen, the lead role in "Swan Lake," one of the most iconic roles in a ballerina's repertoire. (Applause) By then, I was already a public figure, but stepping into that role with the kind of pressure that was far from normal for most ballerinas. When most dancers debut a principal role, "The New York Times" doesn't review them before they've even stepped on stage. There aren't articles declaring that if they can't perform a sequence of 32 fouettes perfectly, they don't deserve a promotion. But that was my reality. Before I even danced a step, my worth was being debated in print. Every headline reminded me that I wasn't being judged solely on my artistry or my technique, but also on the fact that I was a Black woman standing in a role where no Black woman at ABT had stood before. And yet, in that pressure, I returned to what ballet had always been for me. A language of artistry. A way to tell stories. A place to find calm and beauty, when the world could be anything but. When the day finally came to debut as the Swan Queen, Raven Wilkinson was in the audience. Raven had been the first Black woman to dance in a major American ballet company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, in the 1950s, performing across segregated America while facing threats from the Ku Klux Klan. She never imagined, and she told me this several times, "I'd never imagined I would see a Black woman in this role." And at my curtain call, she walked on stage and placed flowers in my hands. (Applause) For both of us, it was a moment of transformation, a stage that had once literally shut her out, she was not allowed to dance on that stage, was now a stage that we could stand on together. Resilience had turned pain into beauty and beauty into legacy. In 2015, I was promoted to principal dancer at American Ballet Theater

the first Black woman in the company’s then 75-year history. (Applause) But resilience doesn't end with achievement. It asks, what now? For me, it meant expanding the stage beyond the opera house. As you can see, I'm here dancing with Prince, someone who definitely helped me to expand the audience that we were reaching through ballet; through the Misty Copeland Foundation, bringing ballet into communities that once felt excluded; through books, giving children stories they could see themselves through; through film, showing movement as a universal language. Attempting to create new spaces for beauty to take root, and ensuring the stage is wide enough for others to step onto, has been a small way to offer others the strength and support, to discover their own resilience, to build it and to store it for the moments they would need it most. So if you remember nothing else from my story, remember this. Resilience doesn't require an easy beginning or a perfect ending. It's about persistence and showing up again and again. It's the quiet decision to return to rehearsal after rejection, to rise when the world says you don't belong. To create beauty even when the ground beneath you is unsteady. That is the resilience that ballet gave me. And resilience is a skill we can all draw on, one that belongs to anyone, anywhere, whenever it is needed. (Music) (Music ends) Thank you. (Cheers and applause)