The theater for the New York City Ballet sits quiet and empty, with its endless rows of velvety red chairs and halos of golden light cast from a high-above chandelier. Even without the audience, the clapping and oohing and aahing, or the sound of a dramatic musical score, it's easy to imagine the magic of a performance. It's a feeling that ballerina India Bradley knows well, she tells me as we sit down to talk on a Monday in mid-January.
Bradley, 25, has been a member of the Corps de Ballet since August 2018. But this past December, she made history starring in George Balanchine's The Nutcracker as the first Black dancer cast as a Dewdrop, a role where she glides and pirouettes across the stage in a whimsical costume and tiara.
While Bradley doesn't consider herself a crier, she was moved by the crowd's response, especially since she wasn't expecting such thunderous applause. "It was so much pressure, and I was really nervous," she says.
"The responsibility of [existing as] the first Black anything is something you cannot explain the feeling of. It's something on your shoulders that is really heavy.
And when I came out and the audience had that reaction...it was just so emotionally supportive and really sweet." Her mother sat in the crowd, sobbing.
By the time I met Bradley, the curtain had closed on The Nutcracker. Bradley was on her day off from rehearsals, but she was busy preparing for the continuation of the company's 75th anniversary season. That meant working long days, starting at 10:30 a.m. and ending as late as 10:30 p.m.
Bradley is used to it, though. After all, there really is no before she was a ballerina, it's who she's always been.
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