Misty Copeland performed at the 98th Academy Awards as part of a live tribute to Sinners, not as a planned response to Timothée Chalamet’s remarks about ballet and opera. The timing made the appearance feel pointed to many viewers, but Copeland told Vogue she had agreed to perform before the controversy had grown.
Why did Misty Copeland perform at the Oscars?
Copeland joined Miles Caton, Raphael Saadiq and a large ensemble for “I Lied To You,” the Oscar-nominated original song from Sinners, at the 98th Academy Awards on March 15, 2026. The ceremony took place at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and aired on ABC and Hulu. The Academy presented the number as a cinematic live moment honoring Sinners’ visual style and showing how music contributes to the film’s storytelling, rather than as a stand-alone ballet showcase. The Academy’s lineup announcement described the performance concept; its official ceremony record documents the event.
What did Copeland wear, and how was the dance created?
Copeland wore a costume designed by Geoffrey Holder for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 1982 production of Firebird, borrowed from the company’s archive. The Oscars choreography was made for the occasion: Copeland said it drew in part on that Harlem production and on birdlike movement, but was not a reproduced passage from Firebird. Her Vogue interview also reported that she was about three months out from hip replacement surgery and still in physical therapy at the time of the interview.
What did Timothée Chalamet say about ballet and opera?
Chalamet made the remarks during a town hall with Matthew McConaughey about keeping movie theaters alive. He said he did not want to work in ballet or opera to keep them alive when “no one cares,” then joked about their loss of viewership. Copeland responded that he should uplift art forms rather than compare them. CBS News’ account reported the exchange and Copeland’s response. In that coverage, she said, “There’s a reason that the opera and ballet have been around over 400 years”; that is her statement, not an independently verified statistic.
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Was Copeland’s performance a response to Chalamet?
The timing made that interpretation understandable, but the available accounts distinguish audience reaction from the segment’s stated purpose. Copeland told Vogue: “I had agreed to do this before any of this stuff was happening and had blown up the way that it has.” Creative producer Serena Göransson described the number as an extension of Sinners, whose red ballerina imagery already referenced Copeland. The performance therefore resonated amid the debate without evidence that it was conceived as a rebuttal.
Copeland also told Vogue, “It’s an incredible opportunity to put ballet on this stage and for it to be seen in a different light.” That captures the added significance of the moment: a classical ballet performer appeared inside a film-centered musical sequence just as ballet’s public value was being debated.
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