\u201cThank you for your application to our ballet academy. Unfortunately, you have not been accepted. You lack the right feet, turnout and torso length. You have the wrong body for ballet. And at your age, you are too old to be considered.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat in my dance teacher Cindy\u2019s living room, staring at the letter from one of the top ballet companies in the country, too shocked to move. The company not only didn\u2019t want me, it thought I was totally wrong for ballet<\/a>? Finally I handed Cindy the letter and asked, \u201cWhy would they say that about me?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019d gotten a late start in ballet. Some dancers begin their training as young as age three. I took my first lesson when I was 13. Not at an elite dance school either, but at a Boys & Girls Club, something unheard of in professional ballet.<\/p>\n R<\/a><\/strong><\/em>EAD MORE: MISTY COPELAND HONORED WITH A BARBIE DOLL IN HER IMAGE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019d made real progress, though. By the time I auditioned for that prestigious company, I was 15. I\u2019d been called a ballet prodigy, a word whose depth of meaning I didn\u2019t initially understand.<\/p>\n