After finally opening a door in the ballet world to other dancers who looked like her, she didn't want that door to slam shut because of an injury. 'I felt mostly like I was letting down the Black community.'Īs a Black woman, Copeland had heard for years that her skin color, her body and her hair didn't conform to what ballerinas were supposed to look like. 'It was just like my whole world came crashing down,' she says.

When the first surgeon warned her that she might never dance again, Copeland was devastated. Finally, toward the end of the company's season, Copeland was diagnosed with six stress fractures in her tibia - three of which were classified as 'dreaded black line' fractures, meaning that there were almost full breaks through the bone. So she pushed on, dancing the principal role in The Firebird, despite the fact that the pain was becoming increasingly severe. And I knew that had that happened, I wouldn't be given the opportunity again.' And I would not have been able to perform. 'If I had gone to the artistic staff or the physical therapists and said, 'I'm in a lot of pain,' they would have removed me from the rehearsals. 'I knew how critical this moment was for my career,' she says. It was 2012, and, after 12 years with the American Ballet Theatre, Copeland, one of the few Black dancers in the company, had finally landed her first leading role in a classical work.

At first, Misty Copeland thought the pain she was experiencing was shin splits.

The firebird ballet misty copeland