PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Anastasia Noble fell in love with ballet the moment she first started dancing. The turns, the tutus, it all made her feel like she was “actually expressing [herself] through dance.”
She started dancing at five years old, but never felt like she fit in because often, she was the only Black girl in the class.
“There was always that one group of girls who were just looking me up and down, and I’m just like ‘I’m just trying to dance,’” said Noble, now 14. “That’s what dance is about, it’s about feeling at home, expressing yourself, and just being free.”
The Chocolate Ballerina Dance Company hopes to change this narrative for Black and brown dancers of all ages. Noble started taking classes with them a few years ago, and this year, she’ll be performing in their annual holiday show, “The Nutcracker: Dipped in Chocolate.”
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Chocolate Ballerina leads professional dancers from all over the country and offers free ballet classes for anyone ages eight and older.
Youth and adult dancers will be performing in “The Nutcracker” Dec. 17-18 at Drexel University’s Mandell Theater. Throughout the year, the company also performs “Swan Lake” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
The first act of their show is strictly traditional ballet, but the second act incorporates dance styles from Brazil, Egypt and West Africa.
“You’re also getting that dipped-in-chocolate, that rich, that flavorful, that colorful, that warmth act that you’re gonna say, ‘Wow, this is an experience that I’ve never seen before,’” said Chanel Holland Pierre, the company’s founder.
When Holland Pierre started ballet almost 30 years ago, she was mainly the only dark-skinned African American in her class which, like Noble, made her feel like she didn’t belong. Starting her own company, she wanted to make everyone feel included.
“That’s why I chose the word 'chocolate' – so you have white chocolate and caramel and all different types of chocolate that you can say come together to share this one moment of ballet,” she said.
Still, ballet is predominantly white. In 2015, Misty Copeland became the first Black woman to be a principal dancer in the American Ballet Theater, which had already been around for 75 years.
One dancer, who plays Uncle Drosselmeyer in "The Nutcracker," came from Texas for the show and had never been with an all-Black company.
“He’s like, ‘I didn’t even think this was possible,’” Holland Pierre said. “Me hearing that, it’s unfortunate and fortunate because we are not the first and we’re not going to be the last.”
For Noble, it’s more comfortable to dance with people who look like her, not just because the “vibe” is different, but because at Chocolate Ballerina they’re more focused on having fun with it, while still keeping it traditional.
“We’re really just being a family together, dancing,” Noble said.