Brazilian dancer Nayara Lopes joined Finnish National Ballet as a first soloist for the 2025–26 season. In late February 2026, while preparing to dance Cupid in Don Quixote, she found white makeup being applied to her face.

"I was like, 'What is happening?' It wasn't normal makeup," Lopes tells Dance Magazine. "I'm a Black dancer. You don't do that. It felt like they were changing my race."

The moment carried particular weight for Lopes. Years earlier, when she was preparing for her first international ballet competition, a teacher told her to lighten her skin to improve her chances of winning an award. The message that her dark skin was a disadvantage left a psychological scar and a determination, as she puts it, not to accept such treatment again.

After four years as a principal dancer with Philadelphia Ballet, Lopes had moved to Helsinki seeking a new chapter. Instead, she says, the whiteface incident confirmed feelings of discomfort she had already experienced in the company. While there is a Black male dancer at Finnish National Ballet, she was the only Black woman.

What happened in the studio

Lopes wiped away some of the makeup through her tears and went to company class. Two colleagues, who asked to remain anonymous, say they found the makeup startling. "It looked ridiculous—a white face on a Black body," one of them says.

Lopes says she was too distressed during the class and the subsequent stage rehearsal to speak up. After class, she says, more white makeup was applied to her neck, chest, and arms. She initially believed it was a mistake that someone would correct. When no one from leadership remarked on it, her assumption changed. "I thought, Oh, my god, this is an artistic choice," she says.

Finnish National Ballet's artistic director, Javier Torres, says the situation is more nuanced. Watching 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."

That distinction became the sticking point. The day after the incident, while Lopes was being made up as Kitri's friend, Torres came to speak with her and the makeup artist. He stated the Cupid look should be "less white." For Lopes, that was not acceptable. She wanted assurance that her skin would not be whitened at all.

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."

The aftermath

Two days later, at a previously scheduled full company meeting with Torres, Lopes read a statement about her experience and received applause from her colleagues. Torres apologized, but according to Lopes and the two other dancers interviewed, he spent considerable time excusing what had happened. They recall debate over the meaning of "paler," "less white," and "lighter skin."

Torres acknowledges he did not clarify his position adequately at the time. In his view, anyone can look like a pale version of themselves—the way they might appear if 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. He adds that in recent years he has removed insensitive elements from productions, including a fat suit formerly used in Sleeping Beauty, and that failing to reconsider the white makeup for Cupid was an oversight.

Lopes went on medical leave and did not perform the role of Cupid. This season, she returns to Philadelphia Ballet.

A shifting standard

Skin-altering makeup has become increasingly unacceptable in U.S. ballet companies. Angel Corella, artistic director of Philadelphia Ballet, says he does not think it 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. At Philadelphia Ballet, dancers of color are consulted about any special makeup and hair requirements for a role to make sure they are comfortable.

European companies face similar reckonings. In 2020, Chloé Lopes Gomes sued Staatsballett Berlin over racist treatment, including skin-whitening makeup, and eventually settled with the company. In the United States, Black dancers remain underrepresented in ballet's upper ranks; Black principal women like Lopes, Nikisha Fogo at San Francisco Ballet, and Katlyn Addison at Ballet West are among 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."