For decades the prominent image of a ballet dancer has been a white body with pale clothing. It took 75 years for American Ballet Theatre to have its first African American female principal dancer, Misty Copeland. When TaKiyah Wallace-McMillian went to enrol her three-year-old daughter into her first ballet class, she immediately saw this lack of diversity and representation-even on her local dance studio's website. Within weeks TaKiyah, a freelance photographer, began shooting a project she called Brown Girls Do Ballet, which eventually became an Instagram hit and a non-profit organization...
For decades the prominent image of a ballet dancer has been a white body with pale clothing. It took 75 years for American Ballet Theatre to have its ...