Ballet and Budgets on Late Night
Stephen Colbert featured American Ballet Theater’s Misty Copeland and legendary musician Yo-Yo Ma yesterday on the CBS Late Show, perhaps one of the few times in recent memory a ballet dancer – not to mention a classical cellist – has taken center stage in a world dominated by comics, actors, and celebrities.
Copeland made history when she became the American Ballet Theater’s first black female principal dancer. She has published both an autobiography, Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, (S&S/Touchstone; Tantor Audio) and a children’s picture book, Firebird, illus. by Christopher Myers, (Penguin/Putnam).
Colbert interviews Copeland before her performance (beginning at time stamp 31:22 in the full video). He spends a lot of time with her and asks thoughtful questions, including how she feels about being a role model.
Bustle says Twitter lit up over her and Ma’s appearance. Below is a highlight.
In contrast the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, appears tomorrow night, discussing his new book The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath (Norton; Brilliance Audio). In it he presents a history of the 2008 financial collapse through his perspective as the point man for the government’s management of the economy.
Bernanke is in the midst of a big push for his book and Colbert is not his only stop.
He was on CBS Sunday Morning last week and has gotten wide coverage in print media from his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to coverage in The New York Times. He will appear on FOX, CNN, PBS, and ABC as well.
The early attention is paying off. His book is sitting at Amazon’s #20 spot already and he has yet to get the Colbert bump – if one is in the offing.