Meet Misty Copeland, Inspiring Ballerina

Following a slew of companies that are trying to hope on the girl power bandwagon, Under Armour released an ad for their new women’s line, featuring ballerina Misty Copeland.

While we of course roll our eyes a little at corporations thinking of girl power as “trendy”, Misty Copeland really does deserve some applause. A ballet prodigy, she didn’t start dancing until she was 13, and she had to overcome great adversity to even continue dancing oat all (there were legal disputes between her mother and dance teachers when she was a teenager).

Additionally, Copeland faced massive amounts of cultural pressure upon joining the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and being one of the only non-white dancers upon her arrival. She is also currently the only African American ballet dancer in the company.

So the Under Armour ad? Yeah, it’s cool. But Misty Copeland? She’s the best.

By Lily Herman on August 1, 2014
Lily is the Managing Editor at HelloFlo, where she oversees all editorial and social media operations for the brand. In addition to her work at HF, she's co-founder and CEO of The Prospect, the largest student-run college access organization in the world. Her work has been featured on TIME, Forbes, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Mashable, USA TODAY and Lifehacker. You can perpetually find her on Twitter.