Daphne Lee Opens Up About Being a Black Ballerina With Natural Hair

Daphne Lee is a few minutes late to our call. She is finishing up rehearsals with the Memphis–based dance collective, Collage. When she rushes out of the studio to speak, she isn’t breathless — rather, she is calm, laser-focused, and chooses her words with a particular determination. It’s immediately clear how she won the national Miss Black USA title in August — there is an elegance to her energy that can be felt through the phone. Lee is a black ballerina who wears her natural hair with pride and is determined to shatter stereotypes about the black female body.

Raised in New Jersey to a Panamanian father and English mother, she identifies as a first generation Afro-Latina. She is certainly a trailblazer — Lee won this year’s Miss Black USA pageant wearing faux locs, inspiring many of her pageant mates to wear their hair in a similar style after the competition was over. She is one of three black dancers with her own skin-swatched pointe shoe (most black dancers have to use makeup to match their shoes to their skin tones). Lee is a black ballerina at a time when they still make headlines, as Eurocentric body standards and industry racism continue to pervade the stage today.

It was only 62 years ago when Raven Wilkinson became one of the first African-American ballerinas dancing for a ballet company — under the condition that she paint her face as a white woman. Before Misty Copeland became a celebrity, starring in brand campaigns and her own film, Lauren Anderson broke barriers as one of the first black female principal dancers in an American ballet company.

Lee is an activist, a black woman, and a ballerina. It’s impossible to pick one label and not include the others, and here she talks with Allure about all of it.

You just recently won the title of Miss Black USA — what does winning this particular pageant mean for you? Do you think beauty pageants can be feminist?

This pageant organization is very unique because it really serves to help women of color [achieve] their academic pursuits. A lot of women go into pageantry not because of beauty or anything like that, but actually for the scholarship money. Everyone’s trying to pursue a master’s degree or finish their bachelor's, and pageantry actually helps with that.

This pageant happens to celebrate the unique traits of women of color. Out of 49 applicants, I made it to Black Miss New Jersey…and then I ended up winning [Miss Black USA]. I do feel that pageants empower women. I think they’re a strong tool, and I don’t think that they’re showing women in a negative light, I think that’s what the audience is perceiving because they don’t know the backstory. Pageantry is all about a glamorized interview contest. They’re trying to see if you’re the right woman for the job to take on the role of whatever title you are holding. They’re just looking for someone who can represent that brand and be a spokesperson for that organization.

Growing up, there weren’t too many black ballerinas to look up to. What was your experience like being a black woman in a traditionally white space?

I actually grew up seeing a lot of black dancers. I knew who Lauren Anderson was, the first black principal. Of course, I knew Misty Copeland, we’re friends and I see her in New York all the time. You know of these black historical female ballerinas because you do your research. My mom being a dancer, I had access to that research and knowledge.

I mean you do notice it, especially when you’re auditioning and you’re going into different companies. Okay, yes, you’re definitely the only one, or there’s only one or two of you, and if there’s already one in the company, there’s less likely of a chance for them to accept another, depending on how you look and how you fit into the company. But at the same time, I think a lot of black ballerinas don’t let that stop them. We know that we are just bodies in space and that if we are good enough for the job then we are good enough for that company.

A lot of the ballet and choreography, especially the evolution of choreographers coming up, stems from traditional black work...It’s about educating audiences. Traditionally, yes, it’s from Europe, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not connected to it in some way. Here at Collage, we have choreographers who know that. They know we can dance on pointe and they know we can go to Camille Brown, which is this very urban movement. They know we can do both, and it’s pretty exciting to be in a company that shows off that range. Showing that to the community really makes a different impact on how people view ballet.

Society hypersexualizes black women, and perhaps, even more, black dancers. As a ballerina, which is considered a much more conservative and reserved space, do you still feel any remnants of those stereotypes?

I don’t. I’m actually using it to turn it around. Yes, my body is beautiful, and it can be used in this elegant way. You’re not going to envision this body in the traditional way that you might envision a black woman looks like. I’m showing the black body in a different light — in a way that’s positive, in a way that’s different, but also staying true to my roots. As a black woman, as a black dancer, I can do many different styles and this body is an instrument. The more the media showcases black women, black ballet dancers, looking beautiful and looking elegant, then that already is going to change the stereotype.

Did you wear your hair natural always? What was your hair journey like?

No, I have not. As a little kid, a little black girl, you have your little bobo beads and your little hairstyles that your mom creates on you, and you get to this point where you start seeing things — and you’re seeing other people in the industry, or on TV in general, and you decide to chemically relax your hair. My mother did warn me. She was like, “Are you sure you want to do this?” and I’m like, “Yeah it’ll be fine, hair grows. It’s not a big deal.” So I chemically relaxed it, which you know, is what makes our hair straight from its kinky, natural state, and then you realize, it starts breaking, it starts getting messed up, and it goes beyond a hairstyle now. It goes beyond who I am, how I was created. Am I conforming into something that I’m not?

The more people can see black women with their natural hair — its normal! There are 106 shades of melanin, and it’s the same with our hair textures, there are so many hair textures! We range it from 1a to 4c to 3b, that’s how we actually grade our hair. I have one of the kinkiest types of hair, called 4c hair, and so I’m able to rock a whole range of styles. So when I do photoshoots...I make sure that I show that yes, I’m a black ballerina, but I can show unique styles that can benefit staying true to myself, [while] also staying true to the classical form. I want to make a statement, but still be beautiful and elegant, and know that you don’t have to [get] extensions to win a pageant.

So would you say that a black woman’s hair is political?

They made it political. We didn’t want it to be political until we were forced to cover our hair back in the 15 and 1600s. So then we made scarves political! And then in the 1950’s we had to wear wigs otherwise we couldn’t get a job, and later, if you didn’t have straight hair you couldn’t move on to the next level, otherwise, they’d call you nappy. So we decided to go back to our original hair, as the 1960s and '70s came around, and [you had] black power and Black Panthers — everybody had afros. But we never made it political. Our hair was always just our hair growing from our head.

When we couldn’t wear it a certain way and we couldn’t get jobs because of it, that’s when it got political. It’s not our fault that our hair grows this way. Our hairstyles started to get associated with different stereotypes that were not positive for black women and men. People can’t say that they would ever see former President Barack Obama with cornrows in the White House. He should have been able to, but it’s not considered. Our bodies, black bodies became political. There’s always been something that we’ve needed to conform to in order to progress. So I don’t want to say that I’m using my hair to make a statement, it happens because it’s still not the norm. I’m just wearing my hair a regular way, you know. As long as I’m alive, it’s going to grow, and I make sure that it’s conducive to my job, which happens to be dance. So I want to make sure I’m able to have diverse styles but still keep it eloquent and quaint.

What was dancing with Beyoncé like? We have to know!

I was literally standing next to her when we were doing the rehearsal, and I saw Blue Ivy running around, and what was unique was that it was for her Miss Carter World Tour opening video, so it was a video that would be playing on tour before Bey popped up out of the ground. She’s an absolute artist. She was able to be Beyoncé when she was relaxed, but as soon as the camera was on, she got back into that professional mode, and that’s something that as professional dancers, we do automatically, so it was really cool to see that we have that connection as artists. The hard work and tenacity she has is something that I admire her for as an artist.

Do you have any advice to young black girls who are growing up in a world where they aren’t seeing themselves represented in spaces that they’d like to enter?

We have technology nowadays. There’s so much social media. I’m actually part of the organization called Brown Girls Do Ballet, and when you look at this particular site, you can see over a thousand photos of young black girls and young professionals who are doing their thing and the entire world can see it. Do your research and stay persistent. So yes, you may be the only black girl in class, but you’re not the only black girl in the world. There are other black girls and black boys who are making that choice to get out there and dance. Use that fire for good, use it to push yourself. Stay persistent.

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