Years ago, when Brazilian dancer Nayara Lopes was preparing for her first international ballet competition, her teacher instructed her to lighten her skin to increase her chances of winning an award. The message that her dark skin was a disadvantage to be hidden left a psychological scar, along with a determination not to accept something like that again.
Earlier this year, Lopes was shocked to find herself in a similar situation. After four years as a principal dancer with Philadelphia Ballet, she joined Finnish National Ballet as a first soloist for the 2025–26 season. In late February 2026, when preparing to dance the role of Cupid in Don Quixote, she went to a company makeup artist as usual before dress rehearsal.
She noticed white makeup being applied to her face. “I was like, ‘What is happening?’ It wasn’t normal makeup,” she tells Dance Magazine. “I’m a Black dancer. You don’t do that. It felt like they were changing my race.”
She wiped away some of the makeup through her tears, then continued on to company class. Two of her colleagues, who asked to remain anonymous, say they found the makeup startling. “It looked ridiculous—a white face on a Black body,” one says.
Lopes says that during the class and subsequent stage rehearsal, she was in too much distress to say anything. After the class, she says, more white makeup was applied to her neck, chest, and arms. She still believed the makeup was a mistake that would be addressed and corrected. But as the rehearsal kept going and no one from leadership remarked on it, she got a sinking feeling. “I thought, Oh, my god, this is an artistic choice,” she says.
FNB artistic director Javier Torres says that the situation is more nuanced. As he watched the stage rehearsal, he says, the makeup looked wrong to him too. He says he told the head of makeup that Lopes should “look pale, not white.”
The distinction between “pale” and “white” became a sticking point. The day after the incident, Lopes was being made up for the role of Kitri’s friend when, she says, Torres came to speak with her and the makeup artist. Torres stated that the Cupid look should be “less white.” This was not acceptable to Lopes; she wanted assurance her skin would not be whitened at all.
The incident was particularly difficult, Lopes says, because she never felt fully comfortable in the company as a Black dancer. While there is a Black male dancer in the company, she was the only Black woman.
Torres rejects the implication that the company’s treatment of her was racist. “I am Mexican, I know what racism is—I have experienced it,” he says. “I would never, ever go there.”
Two days later, at a previously planned full company meeting with Torres, Lopes read a statement about her experience, and received applause from her colleagues. Torres apologized to her, but according to Lopes and the two other dancers interviewed, he spent a fair amount of time excusing what happened. They recall some debate over the meaning and manifestation of the terms “paler,” “less white,” and “lighter skin.”
Torres acknowledges that he didn’t clarify his position adequately at the time. He says that in his view, everyone can look like a pale version of themselves—the way they might appear if they were sick, dead, or a supernatural creature. “When playing a character who is a ghost or not alive, applying makeup that is a shade lighter than natural skin can be appropriate for the role,” he says. Torres adds that in recent years, he has eliminated insensitive elements from some of the company’s productions, like a fat suit formerly used in Sleeping Beauty. He says that failing to reconsider the white makeup for Cupid was an oversight.
Ultimately, Lopes went on medical leave and didn’t perform the role of Cupid. This season, she returns to Philadelphia Ballet.
Skin-altering makeup has increasingly become unacceptable in U.S. ballet companies. For example, Angel Corella, artistic director of Philadelphia Ballet, says that he doesn’t think it’s necessary to change a dancer’s skin color with makeup, even for ghostlike or otherworldly roles. “For me, that element of the character comes across from the dancer’s energy, not their skin tone,” he says. Corella also says that at Philadelphia Ballet, dancers of color are consulted about any special makeup and hair requirements for a role to make sure they are comfortable.
Complicated conversations about race are happening at other European ballet companies, as well. In 2020, Chloé Lopes Gomes sued Staatsballett Berlin for racist treatment, including skin-whitening makeup, eventually settling with the company.
And in U.S. ballet companies, Black dancers remain underrepresented, especially in the upper ranks. Black principal women like Lopes, Nikisha Fogo at San Francisco Ballet, and Katlyn Addison at Ballet West are some of the exceptions.
“People can’t understand what an incident like this feels like if they haven’t been through it,” says Lopes. “That’s why I am speaking up, for the next generation.”