A Ballerina’s Tale

Few dancers make it to the highest levels of classical ballet. Of that already small number only a fraction of them are black women. Misty Copeland has pulled herself up the ladder at American Ballet Theater (ABT) from the studio company to the corps de ballet to soloist. Copeland’s brilliant career shines a light on the absence of women of color at major companies. A Ballerina’s Tale is the story of how a great talent and a powerful will combined can open doors within a very cloistered world.

Date: Saturday, February 20, 3PM
Location: Held Auditorium, 304 Barnard Hall

Filmmaker Bio:
Nelson George is an author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic with a long career in analyzing and presenting the diverse elements of African-American culture. Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie Life Support.  The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He co-edited, with Alan Leeds, The James Brown Reader (Plume), a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late ’50s. Nelson has been on a roll since 2013 with completed documentary projects: VH1’s Rock Docs, Finding The Funk, Showtime’s Brooklyn Boheme (which was supported by Kickstarter), ESPN’s The Announcement, and the short All Hail the Beat, for the Focus Forward campaign. He hopes to continue that success with A Ballerina’s Tale.