Leaps & BOUNDS

MISTY COPELAND transformed the DANCE WORLD during her 25 years with the American Ballet Theatre. Now she's RETIRING from the only company she's ever known-but she's still RAISING the BAR.

- ARIANA MARSH

Dress, CHLOE. Coco Crush earrings and single ear cuff, CHANEL FINE JEWELRY.

I'm 20 blocks from Lincoln Center, seated at a café on New York's Upper West Side on a sunny July afternoon, waiting to meet Misty Copeland. I notice her as soon as she walks through the door. Dressed in a plain white tee and camel Loewe trousers, her hair slicked back into a squeaky-clean knot, her posture ramrod straight, she looks every inch the prima ballerina. When I stand to greet her, I am surprised by her height. At five feet two inches, she's far smaller than I expected, a testament to her Goliath stage presence, which has enraptured millions and offered those long excluded from ballet a reflection of themselves.

Her freckled face breaks into an infectious smile as she greets me and settles in. “There are so many dates I went on here in my teens,” she tells me conspiratorially. It’s a reminder that she’s been here, performing at Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House with American Ballet Theatre, since she was 18. She swears casually. She tells me about going to a Wu-Tang show with her husband, Olu Evans, two nights prior and how she recently tried-unsuccessfully- to coax her three-year-old son, Jackson, out of Broadway's Aladdin at intermission. (“I was like, ‘He might think it’s over.’”)

Any intimidation I might have felt in the presence of one of the most famous dancers in the world instantly dissolves. And when we cut to the chase, she shoots me a wry smile and says, “I’m done with the Swan Lakes.”