Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland was born in Kansas City and raised in San Pedro, California, the fourth of six children of a single mother who moved the family through a series of homes, ending up in a motel room where the children slept on the floor. She was shy and anxious. At thirteen, a teacher at the Boys and Girls Club sent her to a free ballet class taught by Cindy Bradley, who realised within weeks that she was watching a rare talent.

Most professional dancers begin at five or six. Copeland was on pointe within months and dancing lead roles within a year, but the late start was only one problem. At fifteen she was caught in a bitter custody dispute between her mother and her teacher's family, which ended up in court and in the newspapers.

She joined American Ballet Theatre's corps in 2001 and stayed there for six years, hearing repeatedly that her body and her skin colour did not fit the company's image of a ballerina. She was made a soloist in 2007. In 2012, while dancing the lead in Firebird, she was performing on six stress fractures in her shin and needed surgery that might have ended her career.

In June 2015 ABT promoted her to principal, the first Black woman to hold that rank in the company's 75-year history. Her memoir, Life in Motion, and her work with young dancers from poor backgrounds have made her the most widely known ballerina of her generation.