BIG, the ballet

Janelle Monáe is almost finished limbering up in Studio 1 on the first floor of the Atlanta Ballet’s building on West Peachtree, doing her stretches in black leotard and black-and-white floral-print skirt. She has the figure of a ballerina, with a face of brown porcelain and her trademark hair pulled back in a bun.

But this is a world alien to even the interstellar-inspired Monáe. She’s no ballet dancer; she’s a pixie-sized, big-voiced singer from the world of OutKast’s hip-hop and soul. Monáe stares into a wall-to-wall mirror, her reflection moving not to a selection of Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, but her own song, “Sincerely Jane.”

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~ by F.A. Morrison on February 22, 2009.