LIFT Documentary | EXCLUSIVE CLIP | From Homelessness to Ballet 

Yolanssie explains how she and her family ended up housing insecure and how ballet is helping to bring her joy.
Filmed over ten years, the Emmy-nominated LIFT shines a spotlight on the invisible story of homelessness in America through the eyes of a group of young homeless and home-insecure ballet dancers in New York City. After performing all over the world, ballet dancer Steven Melendez returns to the Bronx shelter where he grew up to give back to his community, offering a New York Theatre Ballet workshop to children. His traumatic reaction to the shelter from his childhood sends him on an unexpected journey with three kids to reckon with a past he had escaped from through ballet. As young dance students, Victor, Yolanssie, and Sharia face the same chasm of home insecurity that long separated Steven from his audience and makes the arts inaccessible to so many kids who share his background. The children he mentors offer him insight into turning a hidden trauma into dance, and together they make an aristocratic art form into an expression all their own.
LIFT is available to watch on Peacock, RU-vid, Google Play, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime Video.
CREDITS:
Video courtesy of Paramount.
Cast: Steven Melendez, Victor Abreu, Yolanssie Cardona, Sharia Blockwood, Diana Byer
Filmmakers: Misty Copeland (Executive Producer), David Peterson (Director/Producer), Mary Recine (Producer), Sam Pollard (Executive Producer), Jannat Gargi (Executive Producer), Martha Southgate (Co-Producer), Laura Pilloni (Co-Producer), Jodi Allen (Executive Producer - Vulcan Productions), Ruth Johnston (Executive Producer - Vulcan Productions), Rocky Collins (Executive Producer - Vulcan Productions), Alex Kurtzman (Executive Producer), Jenny Lumet (Executive Producer), Bruce Evans (Executive Producer), Lisa Kleiner-Chanoff (Executive Producer), Bonni Cohen (Executive Producer), Megan Gelstein (Executivr Producer), Leyla Fayyaz (Co-Executive Producer), M. Watanabe Milmore (Editor), Kathryn Bostic (Composer), Gary Griffin (Cinematographer), Alan Jacobsen (Cinematographer), Keith Reamer (Consulting Editor)
Advisors: Misty Copeland (Principal Advisor), Lourdes Lopez, David Lansky, Wendall Harrington, Nan Roman
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