Five titles to awaken your inner ballerina

Charley Burlock writes for Oprah Daily about authors, writing, and reading. Her work has been featured in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review, Agni, and on the Apple News Today podcast. She is currently completing an MFA in creative nonfiction at NYU and working on an book about the intersection of grief, landscape, and urban design.

At Oprah Daily she tagged five ballet-themed "books that range from a steamy page-turner to a raw memoir to a searing investigation." One title on the list:

The Wind at My Back, by Misty Copeland

When Misty Copeland became the first Black principal ballerina in the American Ballet Theatre’s history, she opened a door for countless others to chassé in behind her. In her latest memoir, Copeland introduces us to the woman in whose satin footsteps she followed: Raven Wilkinson. In 1955, Wilkinson became the first Black woman to sign with a major ballet company. But only in 2010 does Copeland stumble across a short interview with her, slipped into a documentary like an “interesting footnote.” The younger dancer had never heard Wilkinson’s name; Wilkinson didn’t have so much as a Wikipedia entry. Eventually, Copeland tracked down this trailblazer, and the two formed a decades-long mentorship relationship that transformed both of their lives and the history of the art form. With startling humility and intense tenderness, Copeland pushes back on the myth of individual achievement in a culture of mass discrimination: “Because there are so many barriers left to break, we are completely dependent on one another and the person on whose shoulders we stand owns our ‘firsts’ as much as we do.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue