Inspiration: Misty Copeland Recreates Edgar Degas’s Ballerinas

In my teenage, I used to be obsessed with impressionism and one of my favourite painters was Edgar Degas. And I am not going to lie, it was because of the dancers he portrayed in the most elegant and dreamy postures. And Misty Copeland, the first African-American Female Principal Dancer with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, recreated these works of art for the coming exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

The series of photographs is inspired by Edgar Degas’s paintings and sculptures of dancers at the Paris Opéra Ballet he began working in the 1860s. The images show the reality of this glamorous world, with ballerinas repeating, training and hanging around the back-stages as well as on stage.