Aesha Ash is a ballet dancer who began The Swan Dreams Project in 2011. It is a program designed to bring ballet to girls of color in her community. Aesha Ash is one of the few women of color to ever grace the stages of the School of American Ballet in New York City. She wants to expose her community to more positive images of women of color through the use of ballet. She wants to show the world that beauty and grace are not defined by status or race.
Aesha grew up in the inner city of Rochester, New York, where crime, gun violence and poverty were among the biggest threats to the community. For her, that's normal. That's just life in the neighborhood, but what she remembers most is the dance studio. She started dancing at the age of five. A teacher mentioned to her mother that she had some promise in ballet, and that it would be difficult for her, as a woman of color, to enter the ballet world. But the hardship she faced was the very thing that pushed her to pursue a career in ballet.
And there's so much negative stereotypes (刻板印象) and misunderstanding of who they are in the media. Through the use of imagery and her career as a ballet dancer, she challenges stereotypes that exist for women of color, particularly those from inner-city communities.
"It's important that our girls see that side of themselves because for many kids it's hard to be what you can't see. I hadn't seen a black ballet dancer before I decided that was what I wanted to be. It was really important for me to be in my environment displaying that because this is where I'm from. It was always beyond ballet," Aesha Ash stated.
