Betty Marie Research Paper

434 Words1 Page

Betty Marie was a girl who had big dreams of being a ballerina. Betty had an Osage Heritage and was born in 1925. She spent most her childhood on an Osage reservation in Oklahoma. Ballet had helped her get out of her shell. When Betty was 4 yrs old, she had her first ballet lesson. After her lesson, she was in love with ballet. Betty had a good start to her career. She preformed at country fairs and rodeos. Betty learned that her talent isn’t enough to make her successful, and there was always more work to be done. Betty’s natural talent made it easier for her to learn ballet from her instructor. She hadn’t learned the basics right and she became very frustrated because she had to go back to the beginning and learn those basics. As Betty Marie’s career grew, there were hardships. There were people in the dancing world that considered her special, but people outside of that world, were mean, especially at her school. People made fun of her being a Native American. People would ask why isn’t she wearing her feathers. Some people wore whoops whenever they saw her. People also made fun of her last name at school. That’s when she decided to change her name to “Maria Tallchief”, because it sounded more traditional and European, since ballerinas at the time were …show more content…

The evidence in the passages supports Betty’s dream of being a ballerina because, it states all the experience she's had and how she got started in ballet. It states where she's preformed at and how she got the love of ballet. It also states all the conflicts she had to face during it all. Her career especially. The title is called “The Osage Firebird” because it states in the passage about her Osage heritage and tribe. Also, in the last paragraph, it states that she preformed a dance called “The Firebird”, which Maria combined her heritage with. People who watched her dance, said it was unbelievable and that she was really a bird of

More about Betty Marie Research Paper

Open Document