In 1932, a young African-American ballerina named Janet Collins auditioned for and was accepted into Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo with one provision: that she dance in white face.
Eight decades after that jarring audition with Ballet Russe, ballerina Janet Collins is about to get her 15 minutes of fame.
Former Fresh Prince of Bel Air star Karyn Parsons – whose production company Sweet Blackberry creates animated documentaries for kids that tell the stories of unsung African American history – has enlisted the support of a crew of African-American Hollywood power players, including Chris Rock, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Copeland and various Fresh Prince cast members to help share the story of African American ballerina Janet Collins.
Chris Rock, a dad of two young girls, has agreed to narrate the film, which will be drawn by New Yorker and New York Times illustrator R. Gregory Christie, and animated by Pixel Pirate Studio, who have worked with Marvel and Nickelodeon.
Sweet Blackberry have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $75,000 to finance production of the film.
(There’s a bunch of rewards being offered, including lunch with the cast of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, for major donors)
“We’ll talk about her and her passions,” says Parsons.
“We’ll go into this passionate, determined person who’s open,” she says, “and then she has this real blow to deal with.”
Despite growing up in segregated America – she was born in New Orleans and grew up in Los Angeles – Collins was stunned back in 1932 when the ballet master from Ballet Russe said should could dance with his company, but that he’d have to paint her white.
”I said no,” Collins told Anna Kisselgoff in a 1974 interview in The New York Times. ”I sat on the steps and I cried and cried.”
In 1951, two years after debuting with her performance at the 92nd Street Y, Collins became a principal dancer at the Metropolitan Opera, performing in Aida, Carmen, the Dance of the Hours in La Gioconda and the Bacchanale in Samson and Delilah.
Collins said no to dancing in whiteface, moved from LA to New York, and did whatever she had to – dancing in films, teaching ballet, and finally, after a decade and a half of struggle, presenting her own choreographed performance at the 92nd Street Y, where Times dance critic John Martin described her as ”the most exciting young dancer who has flashed across the current scene in a long time.”
Janet Collins
She also danced in films such as Stormy Weather (1943), and The Thrill of Brazil (1946), toured with (fellow light-skinned dancer) Talley Beatty in a nightclub act, taught dance and just generally did whatever she had to to pay the bills.
Collins paved the way for dancers such as Geoffrey Holder and current American Ballet Theatre prima ballerina Misty Copeland.
“What she did by dancing the way she did ” Holder said. “to be a prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera House – gave everybody hope.”
It’s the third documentary for Sweet Blackberry since Parsons launched it a decade ago. The first Sweet Blackberry doc told the story of Henry Box Brown, an escaped slave who mailed himself to freedom. It was narrated by Alfre Woodard.
The second, Garrett’s Gift, was about Garrett Morgan, who invented the traffic signal. It was written by Coretta Scott King and narrated by Queen Latifah.
And now, Janet Collins.
“That’s what we have to teach kids,” says Parsons. “Watch what she did. Watch her perseverance. And her determinaton. And ultimately, where it takes her, because she believes in herself. And that’s one for kids to learn from.”
In her own DIY way, for a decade now – with the help of some of the top talent in Hollywood, Parsons has been telling stories in the hopes of inspiring young African-American children, particularly her major demographic: African-American girls between the agre of four and seven.
“It’s a shame that there are so few role models,” she says. “They rarely see a black princess or ballerina…it just doesn’t happen.
“Here,” she says, “is a real black ballerina.”
For more about Sweet Blackberry’s Kickstarter campaign, go here:
With files from Jennifer Dunning New York Times
twitter.com/halfstep
