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"Ballet has long been the province of the white and wealthy. Our daily toe-crushing ercises make pointe shoes as disposable as tissues, but they can cost as much as $80 a pair. I came from a San Pedro, California, family that didn't always have enough food to eat, let alone money to spend on a hobby, and it wasn't until I was 13 years old that I could even take my first ballet class. Most of my dance peers had grown up immersed in the arts, putting on their first tutus not long after they learned to talk. They had summered in Europe, while I didn't get my first passport until I was 17. Their families had weekend homes. I had spent part of my adolescence living on the floor of a shabby motel with my single mom.\n\n But I also stood out in another, even more profound, way. I was a little brown-skinned girl in a sea of whiteness.\n\n I was 19 years old and had just been promoted to American Ballet Theatre's corps de ballet. The corps is an integral part of a dance company, the base that helps to weave the balletic tale. But for most ballerinas the goal is to soar beyond it, to stand out enough to get a featured part, and hopefully, one day, become a principal\u2014 that small band of stars. For now, though, I was just one of the cattle, and it was intensely competitive. No one in the main company knew that I was a prodigy who had started training 10 years later than most girls, nor did they care to find out. My reputation didn't precede me; I had to start from scratch. I felt that the other dancers, and even some of the instructors, were constantly judging me, and that many wondered why I was there at all. Perhaps some of it was in my head, but despite my love for ABT, I felt very much alone.\n\n When my second year in the corps came, I had another obstacle in my way: I was not the same ballerina that ABT had known before. I had finally had my first period and gained 10 pounds. Where there had been buds that could barely fill a bra, my breasts became full and voluptuous. They were so foreign to me that they were uncomfortably heavy, and I was startled when I looked in the mirror. My body had completely changed. Like myself, I soon realized that ABT, too, was searching for the little girl that I had been.\n\n In the corps, you're constantly switching and sharing costumes with other dancers in up to three different casts of the same ballets. There isn't time or money for the company to have costumes tailored to each individual dancer and body. That year I was to perform in Giselle and Swan Lake. But the costumes I was given, handed down from other dancers with their boy-like frames, were too tight in the chest. The wardrobe department would have to let a seam out here, another seam there, to make them fit. I was bewildered and embarrassed\u2014I could feel my confidence start to slip away.\n\n Finally, ABT's artistic staff called me in to tell me that I needed to lose weight, though those were not the words they used. Telling already-thin women to slim down might cause legal problems. Instead, the more polite word, ubiquitous in ballet, was lengthening.\n\n \"You need to lengthen, Misty,'' a staffer said. \"Just so you don't lose your classical line.'' I was five feet two and just over a hundred pounds. They suggested a nutritionist, but the company wouldn't pay for it, leaving me bod in. I was trying to survive on a corps member's salary\u2014$679 a week\u2014in New York, the most expensive of cities. And now I had this additional pressure to try and hire a specialist to help me lose weight.\n\n Like so many things that came late in my life\u2014my introduction to ballet, a more mature body\u2014I was also starting to feel another emotion most young people experience years earlier, often while they're still in high school: rebellion. \"Who do they think they're talking to?'' I would mumble to myself after a long, stressful day. \"I have so much talent. Why do I have to be stick-thin?\" My backup plan was to outdance everyone, to be so technically perfect and unbelievably lyrical in my movements that all anyone would be able to see was my talent, not my breasts or curves or the color of my skin.\n\n Many assume that eating disorders run rampant in the ballet world. In a profession that is so focused on appearance, where athleticism and a certain aesthetic are key, dancers will of course think about their weight. Yes, sometimes their eating patterns will become unhealthy. For young people who join a high-pressure, high-status company like ABT, it can be easy to feel adrift, like you don't belong. And in your search for stability, it might be tempting to change one of the few things you can control: your body.\n\n But contrary to myth, there are no weigh-ins by company staff. There are no stern warnings to lose weight \"or else.\" I can honestly say that in my 13 years with ABT, I have known only a handful of dancers who suffered from an eating disorder like anorexia. It never crossed my mind to starve myself or purge what I had eaten. And gradually, I began to find my balance. It was far from instantaneous\u2014in fact, I think it took me roughly five years to truly understand my body. I had breasts and muscles, but, yes, I was still a ballerina. And ABT, seeing how hard I had worked and how well I was performing, eventually stopped asking me to lengthen. They came to see things my way, that my curves are part of who I am as a dancer, not something I need to lose in order to become one.\n\n I still worry, far more than I should, about what the ballet world thinks of me\u2014whether I will ever be accepted and seen as a well-rounded artist deserving of respect. Or will I forever be \"the black ballerina,\" an oddity who doesn't quite compare? But in my moments of clarity I envision all the people whose lives have been touched by my story, who upon seeing my journey know that you can start late, look different, be uncertain, and still succeed.\n\n I've come so far from the first ballet class I took at age 13 in my baggy gym clothes at the Boys &amp;amp; Girls Club. I know that by being here now, in this rarefied, difficult, elitist, beautiful world, I have made my mark on history and ballet. I will forever fight, performing like it's my last show. And I will love every minute of it.\n\nMisty's memoir, Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, is available March 4. Pre-order it here!"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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