The Tamesis
Tonight at the 2026 Academy Awards, trailblazing American Ballet Theater prima donna Misty Copeland, who retired from ballet last fall, appeared on stage with feathers, jewelry and fire. It’s a stunning sight: While performing the Oscar-nominated song “I Lie to You” sinnerclassical ballet suddenly attracted world attention.
If Copeland had a guest appearance sinner In what appeared to be a pointed rebuttal to a certain Oscar nominee’s recent off-the-cuff remarks about ballet existing outside the cultural mainstream, stars Miles Catton, composer Raphael Sadiq, Shabouze and Alice Smith insisted that the timing in the days leading up to the ceremony was purely coincidental. “It certainly looks like it,” Copeland told me in Los Angeles, fresh from rehearsals. “But that’s not the case. I agreed to do this before any of this happened and things have evolved to what they are now.”
In fact, as the show’s creative director Serena Göransson explains, the Oscars were conceived as an extension of the world of Ryan Coogler’s film – a genre-blurring Southern gothic vampire epic steeped in blues music, folklore and black cultural history. (Göransson’s husband Ludwig wrote sinnerOscar-nominated soundtrack. ) In fact, Copeland has always been a part of that world.
“In the film, the red ballerina” – a dancer who leaps and twirls across the frame in the surreal “I Lied to You” sequence – “was a very intentional choice that echoed her iconic image”. Firebird Goranson said, “We used to joke on set, ‘Maybe one day we’ll do this with the real Misty Copeland.'” With the Oscars quickly approaching, it turns out that all it takes to make that happen is picking up the phone.
For her appearance at the Dolby Theatre, “Ryan Coogler was really interested in putting me in a costume that represented one of the iconic characters I’ve played in my career,” Copeland said. “Swan Lake appear then Firebird. I think Firebird It really ties into the film and the song, especially with all these different historical, cultural, musical and dance spirits that come out of it. “
She’s not just any Firebirdany one. For his performance at the Oscars, Copeland wore a costume created by theater polymath Geoffrey Holder for the Dance Theater of Harlem’s landmark 1982 ballet, choreographed by John Taras to Igor Stravinsky’s early 20th-century score. Embedded in the design is the sankofa, a symbol used by the Akan people of Ghana that means “‘going back in time’—drawing on the wisdom of the past to build a stronger future,” a fitting concept, explains Robert Garland, artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem.
