"It takes a village to raise a dancer."

Monica Stephenson was used to being the only Black student in her ballet classes. She grew accustomed to straightening her natural hair, slicking it into a tight bun and wearing pink leotards that didn’t match her skin tone. And in the early 2000s, when she was the only Black female dancer at the Los Angeles Ballet, that didn’t come as a surprise either.

But times have changed, said Stephenson, now the Miami City Ballet director for community engagement. It doesn’t have to be that way for Miami’s emerging Black ballet artists.

Read more at the Miami Herald