‘We are the village.’ Black ballet pros mentor next generation at symposium in Miami

Monica Stephenson was used to being the only Black student in her ballet classes. She grew accustomed to straightening her natural hair, slicking it into a tight bun and wearing pink leotards that didn’t match her skin tone. And in the early 2000s, when she was the only Black female dancer at the Los Angeles Ballet, that didn’t come as a surprise either.

But times have changed, said Stephenson, now the Miami City Ballet director for community engagement. It doesn’t have to be that way for Miami’s emerging Black ballet artists.

The MoBBallet Symposium/ M.I.A., an event that promotes Black representation in ballet with classes, panel discussions and seminars, kicks off Sunday in Miami. The symposium attracts Black ballet students, scholars, professional dancers, educators and choreographers from across the country to hone their skills, build networks and learn about the history of Black ballet, said organizer and former professional ballet dancer Theresa Ruth Howard.

The symposium will be hosted at Sanctuary of the Arts, a performance arts space in Coral Gables, and runs until Aug. 13. The week-long event offers intermediate and advanced ballet courses, dance educator courses, an academic forum and a choreographer program. The symposium is capped with a free performance, which Howard prefers to call a “sharing,” on Aug. 13, followed by a community town hall.

The event is an opportunity for up-and-coming Black ballet dancers and choreographers to receive the support and mentorship they may not have gotten before in a predominately white art form.

“It takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to raise a dancer,” Howard said. “We are the village.”

The symposium’s programming places a heavy emphasis on the overlooked history of Black dancers in ballet, a topic Howard has spent years promoting.

Howard — who danced professionally with the Philadelphia Civic Ballet Company and the Dance Theatre of Harlem — is well-known as a vocal advocate for equity and has worked with prestigious ballet institutions, schools and companies as a diversity strategist.

In 2015, the year when Misty Copeland became the first African-American female principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, Howard noticed an issue. Many had gotten the impression that Copeland was the first and only Black ballerina, but that wasn’t true, Howard said.

That same year, Howard set the record straight in a blog post highlighting Black ballet pioneers who paved the way for artists like Copeland. From there, Howard founded Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet, an online resource that documents the stories and careers of current and past Black artists in ballet.

“If you don’t know your history, then you don’t know yourself,” Howard said. “And a lot of our history has not been documented.”

MoBBallet held its first symposium in 2019 in Philadelphia, but had been virtual since 2020 because of the pandemic. This year in Miami is only the second time the MoBBallet Symposium will meet in person.

For Stephenson, participating in this year’s symposium was a “no brainer,” she said. In 2019, when she was a teacher at the Washington School of Ballet SE Campus, a predominately Black ballet school, she drove a group of students to Pennsylvania for the first MoBBallet symposium.

She fell in love with the experience, and her students made friendships that last to this day.

“I was completely blown away,” Stephenson said. “For them to have the opportunity to meet students from around the country that look just like them really opened up this sense of community.”

Though there’s plenty of work to be done, Black representation has increased in ballet, Stephenson said. Not only are companies more diverse, but advocacy among dancers has changed, as well.

“In my generation, we knew that if we wanted to participate in ballet that we follow the status quo,” she recalled. “I accepted what I had to do in order to be part of the ballet community.” (That included straightening her hair to fit in. Today, she wears her natural hair.)

Slowly but surely, the ballet world has changed, Stephenson said. Today’s dancers of color are quick to call out microaggressions and advocate for themselves and others. Companies allow for flesh-toned tights and pointe shoes that aren’t pink. And young dancers will grow up with more Black role models to look up to.

“Representation is out there in classical ballet,” she said. “We just need to meet and connect and really get to know one another.”

MoBBallet Symposium/M.I.A.

Aug. 7-13 at Sanctuary of the Arts in Coral Gables

Free “sharing” performance Aug. 13 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Sanctuary of the Arts

This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.