Aesha Ash is an American ballerina. During most of her career at the New York City Ballet, she was the only African-American ballerina. As a child, she began taking jazz classes and later moved to ballet. Ash was accepted into the School of American Ballet at age 13. While at the school, she won the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise. At age 18, she joined the corps de ballet at New York City Ballet. In 2003, she moved to Switzerland to perform as a soloist in the Béjart Ballet. She then returned to the United States in 2005 to join the Alonzo King LINES Ballet, a contemporary ballet company in San Francisco. She retired from ballet in 2008. After retirement, she started the Swan Dreams Project, a project that encourages African-American girls to become ballet dancers. She says about starting the organization, "Through the use of imagery and my career as a ballet dancer, I want to help change the demoralized, objectified and caricatured images of African-American women by showing the world that beauty is not reserved for any particular race or socioeconomic background." In 2016, she received an award from the National Women's History Museum for her contribution to the arts. Ash was also featured in the 2016 book The Ballerina’s Little Black Book.