Misty Copeland is ready to jeté to the big screen.

The accomplished ballerina announced on Instagram that she is joining the cast of Disney's live-action "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" movie, based on Peter Tchaikovsky's classic ballet. Copeland, the first African-American woman to be named a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater, will play the lead ballerina in the film's only dance sequence.


For those unfamiliar with "The Nutcracker" (really, though?), the story follows a young girl named Clara on Christmas Eve as she journeys into a fantastical realm filled with gingerbread soldiers battling mice.

This marks Copeland's first movie role. Her life was the subject of the 2015 documentary "A Ballerina's Tale," and her memoir "Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina" was optioned by New Line with the goal of turning it into a movie.

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