Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson, Debra Austin, Nora Kimball, Misty Copeland, Francesca Hayward. All of these successful black ballet dancers have something in common: they skew toward the fairer end of the sepia spectrum. Onstage, the duskiness of their complexions can be all but washed out, bleached by the lights. From the audience, they could present […]

Dancers remember New York City Ballet’s historic 1962 tour.     Allegra Kent at curtain call with Balanchine, St. Petersburg. Photo by Bert Stern, Courtesy Stern.     Fifty years ago New York City Ballet toured five cities in the USSR—Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Kiev, Tbilisi, and Baku. By any definition it was a historic […]