Chasséing toward greatness
Award-winning ballerina overcomes self-doubt, stereotypes to excel on the dance floor
Considering the kind of impressive ballet achievements Angela Watson has piled up in just a few youthful years, it shouldn’t have taken yet another prestigious honor to provide her with a euphoric jolt of validation.
Still, when the gifted Oakland teen was recently named a National Young Arts Foundation award winner, the news helped to blunt the so-called “imposter syndrome” that had, at times, plagued her.
“It came as a big surprise,” she says of the award that celebrates accomplished youths in the visual, literary, design and performing arts. “It was like, ‘Oh, I can dance. I’m really not that bad.”
Watson, 18, has participated in national tours. She has trained on scholarship in San Francisco, New York and Paris, and performed in front of former Gov. Jerry Brown. She has danced the principal role of Clara in San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker.”
And along the way, she has risen above the considerable challenges of being a Black ballerina in a mostly white world.
So why the self-doubt? “For a long time, I felt like I had somehow infiltrated the dance community” she explains. “I felt like a girl working to be a dancer.”
That feeling took root partially because she’s a relentless perfectionist, but also because she got off to a relatively late start in her chosen field.
As a 12-year-old student at Oakland School for the Arts, Watson auditioned for the ballet program only as an afterthought, and immediately found herself surrounded by girls who had been dancing since the ages of 3 and 4.
It wasn’t long, however, before she qualified for a threeweek summer training program with San Francisco Bal
let School and laced up her first pair of pointe shoes.
“I thought: ‘What’s this? They’re so painful,’” Watson recalls of the experience. “I felt thrown into things — but in a very beautiful way.”
Thus Watson’s love affair with ballet began. And when her mother took her to see San Francisco Ballet’s production of “Giselle” with Maria Kochetkova in the title role, she was absolutely “starstruck.”
Since then, Watson has honed her skills in some of the world’s most prestigious classical training programs. Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, a former principal dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem who has mentored the East Bay teen for two years, likes what she sees.
“Angela has the ‘it’ factor,” Shelton-Benjamin says. “She has a beautiful way of dancing and is very serious about it, which, of course, you have to be to get far. And she has a wonderful way of interpreting the music.”
San Francisco Ballet School director Patrick Armand is a big fan, as well.
“From the first time I saw Angela, straight away I could feel her love of the art form,” he says. “She has a very cerebral approach to her dancing. She’s so resilient and so focused on what she does. You can see her will in action. She wants to get somewhere.”
Even as she trains 30plus hours a week and works to maintain a sparkling GPA, Watson’s passion for ballet continues to burn. But it hasn’t always been easy.
Though pioneering standouts like Misty Copeland — the first African American to be named principal ballerina with American Ballet Theatre — have helped to change the face of classical ballet in recent years, Watson and other Black ballerinas still encounter obstacles and stereotypes tied to standards of body shape, muscle tone and skin color.
During her early years, she was occasionally coaxed by some to limit her sights to joining an all-Black company, or take up contemporary dancing instead of ballet. And she can recall the auditions in which only one or two of 120-plus hopefuls were Black.
On one such occasion, she was reduced to tears.
“She was crying because no one looked like her,” Watson’s mother, Carolyn, says. “She didn’t feel like she belonged. It was very discouraging.”
Adds Shelton-Benjamin, “There is no doubt Angela has the technical ability, but it might come down to acceptance. How ready are these companies to accept someone like her?”
Determined to “slay this dragon,” Watson refuses to give up.
“I’ve had girls tell me, ‘Oh you can be the next Misty Copeland,’” she says. “That’s great, but it’s also upsetting because it shows that’s all they know.”
Not surprisingly, Watson is a huge fan of Copeland and even met the awardwinning superstar during a fundraising event.
“I couldn’t talk. I broke down in front of her and barely said a word,” Watson says of her brush with fame. “But at least she knows I exist.”
Perhaps Watson someday will have the same kind of effect on a young, starry-eyed ballerina. Her goal is to become a principal dancer, preferably with San Francisco Ballet, and the YoungArts award should help her in that quest. Established in 1981, the YoungArts Foundation provides its honorees with financial, creative and professional development support throughout their careers.
A career in ballet is exactly what Watson wants. And though a nagging Achilles injury — along with the quarantine — has hampered her somewhat in the past year, she can’t wait to get back on stage where, she says, “I feel like I turn into something more of myself.”
“I just want to be the best can be,” she says. “I want to be someone who inspires others — someone who gives them an adrenaline rush and stirs them up, and makes them go, ‘Oh, that’s Angela Watson!’”