Ingrid Silva Is Working to Make the Ballet World More Inclusive

Ballet was the only thing familiar to the Brazilian-bred dancer when she moved from sunny Rio to the then-cold, snow-covered New York City streets in 2008 — her first-international trip — without knowing a lick of English. “I learned English by listening to music, watching movies, and braving myself to talk to people, even if it was wrong,” she shares.

Her career as a ballerina in many ways speaks for itself, but she also manages to seek out plenty of non-ballet pursuits. “It’s really important to just also grow outside of my bubble. I want to be seen as more than just a dancer,” she says. In my not-so-humble opinion, Silva is the very definition of a Renaissance woman.  

That hunger to do more is how she ended up founding EmpowHer in 2017; in the past five years, the organization has grown to connect women to resources and a global community through panels, job opportunities, and a blog. “We wanted to give women a space to share their voice, find opportunities, and connect with the community. And we were able to do that,” she says. She also shares that the growth is continuing, which includes an upcoming name change for the organization. 

EmpowerHer is just one of the ways she has figured out how to make a change in her communities. The Blacks in Ballet platform is another. It’s an Instagram page that functions like a directory of dancers for casting agents and regular dance fans alike. Alongside fellow Brazilian ballet dancer Fábio Mariano, Silva launched it in 2020 as a way to highlight the many Black ballet dancers around the world.

Around the same time, she wrote a book titled A Sapatilha Que Mudou Meu Mundo (a bestseller in Brazil) that recounts her life story up until 2020. For now, it’s only available in Portuguese, but she’s working on getting an English-language version published in the States.

In the midst of cultivating a new Instagram community and writing a book, Silva also became pregnant unexpectedly. Though her pregnancy brought her joy, it also brought her anxiety over the future of her career. “I work with my body, and I did not know what was going to happen. So I was extremely worried about [my career]. ‘Am I going to be able to come back to dance?'” she questioned. It adds an additional layer of pressure and anxiety to “snapback” culture, the idea that women need to head to the gym immediately after giving birth to recover their pre-baby body. It was just another way she was expected to change her body to fit into the ballerina mold.