![\"cd-logo-masthead-500\"](\"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/cd-logo-masthead-500-300x37.gif\"){kind=logo}
\n<\/a>Brianna Brown, McKenzie Marshall<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
Earlier this year, a video of Black ballerinas dancing to hip-hop on pointe went viral. Those girls study \u201cHiplet\u201d under instructor Homer Bryant at The Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center. Even though Bryant and the dancers have just recently gained national attention, Bryant has been instructing dancers of all ethnicities at the school for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n Bryant proved the naysayers wrong. Since going viral, Bryant and his dancers have been on Good Morning America and are now preparing to go to Germany for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. But even with the outpour of support that these dancers have been getting, there are still critics that feel that \u201cHiplet\u201d is wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo one has ever seen African Americans do what they\u2019re doing on pointe,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cClassical ballet is this ethereal thing; it\u2019s this high art form and you\u2019re not supposed to do anything to it. The girls are on pointe doing African [dance] and hip-hop, or Hiplet, my trademark, and it\u2019s upsetting a lot of people. But that\u2019s good.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey see ballet as that tunnel vision and they don\u2019t have the peripheral that opens up and says, \u2018Wow, this is new, this is different, this is amazing, this is entertaining, this is staying relevant. This is pulling kids off the street. This is staying with what\u2019s happening now.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Check out the full video interview with Homer Bryant below:<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/pX4rDPL_IiY” image_src=”\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/pX4rDPL_IiY\/hqdefault.jpg”] [\/et_pb_video][et_pb_divider admin_label=”Divider” color=”#1c4693″ show_divider=”off” divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on”] [\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_team_member admin_label=”Person” name=”Briahnna Brown” position=”Fellow, Chicago Defender” image_url=”https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/briahnnabrown_dtu_0781.jpg” animation=”left” background_layout=”light” facebook_url=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/brilove714?fref=ts” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” body_text_color=”#1c4693″ twitter_url=”https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=bri_articulate&src=typd”]<\/p>\n Briahnna Brown is a recent graduate from the School of Communications at Howard University. Briahnna was born and raised in Baltimore, Md., and many of her stories have focused on issues that affect her hometown. Briahnna\u2019s articles have appeared in the Howard University News Service and the NNPA News Wire. Last year, Briahnna was selected to be an American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) intern and she worked at the Smithsonian Magazine in Washington, D.C. Briahnna has also interned at Howard Magazine, the university\u2019s alumni publication.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_social_media_follow admin_label=”Social Media Follow” link_shape=”rounded_rectangle” background_layout=”light” url_new_window=”on” follow_button=”on”] [et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” url=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/brilove714?fref=ts” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#3b5998″]facebook[\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” url=”https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bri_Articulate” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#00aced”]Twitter[\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network] [\/et_pb_social_media_follow][et_pb_team_member admin_label=”Person” name=”McKenzie Marshall” position=”Fellow, Chicago Defender” image_url=”https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/mckenziemarshall_dtu_0785.jpg” animation=”left” background_layout=”light” facebook_url=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mckenzie.zoe?fref=ts” twitter_url=”https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=mckenzietm&src=typd” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” header_text_color=”#1c4693″ body_text_color=”#1c4693″]<\/p>\n McKenzie T. Marshall is a senior journalism major with a concentration in broadcasting at Howard University. McKenzie is a contributing writer for \u201cThe Hilltop,\u201d and a member of Howard\u2019s chapter of the National\u00a0Association of Black Journalists. She also interned\u00a0at the Washington, D.C., bureau of the BBC in the spring of 2016. McKenzie\u2019s ultimate career goal is to be an on-air news reporter. One day, she wants to host her own television show focusing on politics and foreign news.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_social_media_follow admin_label=”Social Media Follow” link_shape=”rounded_rectangle” background_layout=”light” url_new_window=”on” follow_button=”on”] [et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” url=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mckenzie.zoe?fref=ts” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#3b5998″] facebook<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” url=”https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=mckenzietm&src=typd” skype_action=”call” bg_color=”#00aced”] Twitter [\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network] [\/et_pb_social_media_follow][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section admin_label=”Section” fullwidth=”on” specialty=”off”][et_pb_fullwidth_post_slider admin_label=”Fullwidth Post Slider” posts_number=”21″ include_categories=”7,8″ orderby=”date_desc” show_arrows=”on” show_pagination=”on” show_more_button=”on” more_text=”READ MORE” content_source=”off” use_manual_excerpt=”off” show_meta=”off” background_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.53)” background_layout=”light” show_image=”on” image_placement=”background” parallax=”on” parallax_method=”off” use_bg_overlay=”on” use_text_overlay=”off” remove_inner_shadow=”off” background_position=”default” background_size=”default” auto=”on” auto_speed=”5000″ auto_ignore_hover=”on” hide_content_on_mobile=”off” hide_cta_on_mobile=”off” show_image_video_mobile=”off” arrows_custom_color=”#f4bc00″ dot_nav_custom_color=”#f4bc00″ header_text_color=”#f4bc00″ body_text_color=”#f4bc00″ meta_text_color=”#ffffff” meta_letter_spacing=”0″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#f4bc00″ button_bg_color=”#1c4696″ button_border_color=”#f4bc00″ button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_use_icon=”default” button_icon=”%%20%%” button_icon_color=”#f4bc00″ button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”on” button_text_color_hover=”#e09900″ button_border_color_hover=”#e09900″ button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ bg_overlay_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.53)”] [\/et_pb_fullwidth_post_slider][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earlier this year, a video of Black ballerinas dancing to hip-hop on pointe went viral. Those girls study \u201cHiplet\u201d under instructor Homer Bryant at The Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center. Even though Bryant and the dancers have just recently gained national attention, Bryant has been instructing dancers of all ethnicities at the school for decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,16,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-briahnna-brown","category-chevy-dtu","category-chicago-defender","category-mckenzie-marshall","category-nnpa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2368,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions\/2368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"chicago_ballet_large\"](\"https:\/\/www.nnpa.org\/chevydtu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/chicago_ballet_large-300x249.jpg\")
\u201cEverybody\u2019s talking about the school and all of a sudden we\u2019re an overnight success,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cBut that took 26 years\u201426 years of hard work, focus, discipline and determination because as an African-American man with classical ballet training school, people would say, \u2018you\u2019re not going to make it.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n