Chyrstyn Fentroy

Chyrstyn Mariah Fentroy is an American ballet dancer. She currently dances as a principal with the Boston Ballet and is a former principal dancer at Dance Theatre of Harlem. When Fentroy joined Boston Ballet in 2017, she was the first African-American female dancer to join the company in a decade. Her mother is white and her father is black. She began her ballet training under her mother at the Peninsula School of Performance Arts in Palos Verdes, California.

When Fentroy was 17 years old, she moved to New York City and trained as a scholarship student at the Joffrey Ballet. As a student, she gained touring experience with the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group.

During her time with the Joffrey Ballet, Fentroy competed in the Youth America Grand Prix finals (2010), as well as the Beijing International Ballet and Choreography Competition (2011).

Career Upon graduating from the Joffrey Ballet, Fentroy joined Dance Theatre of Harlem, The following year, she was awarded the Princess Grace Honoraria Award in Dance. In 2018, WBUR recognized Fentroy as one of their "Artery 25," which recognizes influential artists of color in the Boston area.

Restless with the lack of growth opportunities at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, As a member of the corps de ballet for "Chaconne," Fentroy faced the racism in ballet head-on when she had to hide her natural hair; this experience began a journey toward activism in ballet.

Fentroy has also written and contributed to articles for dance blogs and magazines. In 2018, she contributed to Jai-Dee Dancewear's blog, wherein she wrote her perspectives on many aspects of her life as a Black ballet dancer. In 2020, she wrote an article entitled "My Experience as a Black Ballerina in a World of Implicit Bias" for Pointe, wherein she highlighted the "Eurocentric history of extreme racial discrimination and elitism" in the ballet world.