Footprints: Hoping, Dreaming and Working Hard

“Mama says wishing on stars is a waste anyhow, says you don’t need stars in the sky to make your dreams come true. Hope can pick your dream up, she says, off the floor of your heart, when you think it can’t happen, no how, no way, though unlike wishing, Mama says hoping is hard work.” – Little Ballerina, from A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina’s Dream, by Kristy Dempsey

Last week, when our little 2 year old dancer, Issa, picked this book up off of the library shelf, I thought it was a cute gesture. The little girl on the cover, dancing on the rooftops of New York City caught her eye. “Eh??”, she asked (her version of “This?”).

This week – in light of Misty Copeland’s accomplishment, being the first African-American female principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre in its 75 year old history – this week, the book is inspirational and impetus to continue to encourage our children to hope, dream, and work hard.

A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina’s Dream is set in 1950s Harlem. The “little ballerina” is an African-American girl whose mother sews and washes for a ballet company that she cannot perform with because of the color of her skin. The little ballerina watches, learns, dreams and hopes. One day, a newspaper article catches her eye, making her “dizzy with promise”…

“Miss Janet Collins…first colored prima ballerina…Metropolitan Opera House.”

On November 13, 1951 Janet Collins (1917-2003) was the first African-American hired to perform with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Despite opposition because of the color of her skin, such as being denied opportunities to take dance lessons as a child, being rejected by other troupes, and blocked from performing at various venues, she persevered. Miss Collins was a pioneer, breaking the color barrier, and paving the way for black ballet dancers to come…

Sixty-four years later, we celebrate with a young woman who now dances in Miss Collins’ footprints…

Misty Copeland.

Named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2015, she did not begin her ballet studies until age 13, several years past the age when many vocational dancers begin (8-10 years old). Despite odds and doubts, she dreamed, hoped, worked hard and succeeded, realizing that her success was not hers to celebrate alone. She stated, “At the same time, it made me so hungry to push through, to carry the next generation. So it’s not me up here — and I’m constantly saying that — it’s everyone that came before me that got me to this position.”

So, to Misty Copeland, Congratulations!!! And thank you…

A little girl named Issa is watching, perhaps one day dancing in your footprints…dreaming, hoping, and working hard.

To Kristy Dempsey, thank you for writing a tale to encourage this mama to dream with her dreamers, even if it cost her half the price of a new sewing machine :D.

Kim