Category: Shall We Dance Friday

Misty Copeland, principal dancer American Ballet Theatre, appears in the March issue of Harper’s Bazaar to recreate iconic ballet inspired paintings and sculpture from impressionist painter Edgar Degas. Congratulations to Copeland for once again disrupting the historical whiteness of ballet. 

Copeland as Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green); Oscar de la Renta dress, $5,490

Photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory captured the world-renowned dancer for the eye-catching editorial spread. The resemblance to Degas’ original works of dancers at the Paris Opéra Ballet is uncanny. Copeland nails the graceful poses while dressed in high fashion designs by Valentino, Alexander McQueen, Carolina Herrera, and Oscar de la Renta that look like they were literally plucked from each painting and sculpture.

Copeland as Degas’s Dancer; Carolina Herrera top, $1,490, skirt, $4,990

In the article, she explains why she love to dance. “I was drawn to ballet and performing for a reason that I think a lot of people can’t really understand or relate to,” she says. “People think it’s like, ‘You’re out there,’ or ‘You’re exposed.’ But I felt safe when I was on the stage, like no one could get to me. It was the first time in my life that I felt protected.”

Copeland as Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen; Alexander McQueen dress, $4,655, and corset, $4,525

At 33, she’s in the midst of the most illuminating pas de deux with pop culture for a classical dancer since Mikhail Baryshnikov went toe-to-toe with Gregory Hines in White Nights.

Copeland as Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green); Oscar de la Renta dress, $5,490

Degas’s ballet works, which the artist began creating in the 1860s and continued making until the years before his death, in 1917, were infused with a very modern sensibility.  He offered images of young girls congregating, practicing, laboring, dancing, training, and hanging around studios and the backstage areas of the theater. 

Alberta Ferretti dress, $28,090

Copeland is engaged to Olu Evans, an attorney, who she’s been with for more than a decade. They live together in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She admits to an “intensifying” designer-footwear addiction, and while she’s still working out the details of her nuptials, she confesses giddily that Christian Louboutin is making her shoes for the occasion.

Roberto Cavalli skirt, price upon request

Misty Copeland- The Art Of Dance

Video shot by Sandy Chase

Photography by Ken Browar and Deborah Ory of the NYC Dance Project