Kathleen McGillycuddy CW51茶馆 Colloquium Presents: Misty Copeland
The Kathleen McGillycuddy Council for Women of Boston College is dedicated to furthering the roles of women as leaders and active participants in the University. The Council seeks to help shape the University's future and to support its mission through the engagement of the women of Boston College.
Event Info
听
April 9, 2026 鈥� 5:30 pm
Robsham Theatre 鈥� Boston College
Join us as we welcome Misty Copeland, the First African American Female Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre.
Established in 2015, the CW51茶馆 Colloquium hosts exceptional thought leaders to consider contemporary issues through the lens of women鈥檚 leadership. The Colloquium is made possible by the Council for Women of Boston College and the Institute for the Liberal Arts.
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is first come first serve. Doors open at 4:30 pm.听Only small purses and handbags are permitted; no large bags, including tote bags and backpacks, are allowed.
In case the room reaches full capacity, there will be a viewing room in the Yawkey Athletics Center, Murray Function Room.
Visitor parking听is available in the Beacon Street and Commonwealth garages.
Misty Copeland
Misty Copeland has been a major star in American cultural life for much of the last decade. Her rise has been inspirational, but also a feat that not even the ballerina herself had ever expected. At 13, when she discovered ballet Misty was living in a motel room, with her single mom and five siblings. A true prodigy, she was dancing en pointe within three months of taking her first dance class and performing professionally in just over a year: a feat unheard of for any classical dancer. As principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, she became the first Black woman to achieve that position in the company鈥檚 75-year history. She is the defining ballerina of this era, who is not only one of the finest dancers in the country, but someone who has captured the imagination of a generation that demands equity and diversity in all areas of their lives. In her talk, this barrier-breaker will discuss the ups and downs of her journey.
Moderator:
Daniel M. Callahan
Daniel Callahan is a musicologist and dance scholar who researches how music has moved people - dancers, musicians, orchestra conductors, and audiences - from the late nineteenth century to the present. His book听The Dancer from the Music听(Oxford University Press, under contract) explores how US modern dance developed out of, depended on, contributed to, and eventually distanced itself from canonical concert music. The American Musicological Society awarded him both the 2019 Alfred Einstein Award and the 2019 Philip Brett Award for his article, 鈥淭he Gay Divorce of Music and Dance: Choreomusicality and the Early Works of Cage-Cunningham,鈥� published in the听Journal of the American Musicological Society.听Callahan was in residence at Harvard University鈥檚 Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study as the 2019鈥�2020 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow, working on his second book,听Conducting Oneself: Bodies, Identities, and Power on the Podium, which examines how orchestra conductors choreograph, legitimate, and limit their movements on the podium and off, from conservatories to coveted positions. In Fall 2022 he will be a Visiting Associate Professor in Harvard's Department of Music. Prior to joining the faculty at Boston College, he was the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago.