Karen Valby's new book, "The Swans of Harlem," tells the forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their 50-year sisterhood with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. These Swans of Harlem performed for the Queen of England, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder, on the same bill as Josephine Baker, at the White House and beyond, but decades later, there was almost no record of their groundbreaking history to be found.
Arthur Mitchell and Dance Theatre of Harlem, 1972
The Birth of a Groundbreaking Company
In 1969, at the height of the civil rights movement, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook founded Dance Theatre of Harlem. In moments of extreme injustice and frustration the most impactful art is born. Arthur Mitchell created the company in New York City, after making history in 1955 as the first black principal dancer at New York City Ballet. He was also the famed protégé of George Balanchine-the Russian-born dancer, choreographer and co-founder of the School of American Ballet.
Mitchell’s impulse to start Dance Theatre of Harlem is said to have been spurred by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Working in Brazil on a commission from the American government to assist in the founding of the National Ballet of Brazil, Mitchell decided to return to the US to try to make a difference in his community by teaching ballet classes in his native Harlem.
The early days were humble and inclusive. Mitchell began by teaching dance in a converted garage in Harlem, leaving the doors open so passersby could see what was going on. He relaxed the dress code to encourage enrollment by young men who preferred to dance in jean shorts and T-shirts. To accommodate his growing roster of students, he eventually partnered with his former ballet master Karel Shook to help him run the school and direct what would eventually become Dance Theatre of Harlem. The company would grow to have a lasting impact on the American ballet scene and become a beacon for black dancers worldwide.
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DTH Co-founders Karel Shook & Arthur Mitchell in 1971
Breaking Barriers and Challenging Norms
“These five original Dance Theatre of Harlem ballerinas fell in love with an art form that most of America believed was White and should remain so. Upon Arthur Mitchell’s founding of an all-Black company in 1969, they eagerly took their places at the barre and challenged themselves to the utmost.
They showed that Blacks could not only excel at classical ballet but could also shape the art in their own vibrant image. “Valby finally sheds light on these towering dance pioneers, all of whom triumphed as dancers in a world that didn’t believe Black people had a place in the classical art form.
Marcia Lynn Sells of Cincinnati was a first-generation dancer with The Swans of Harlem, the first Black ballerinas. Marcia Lynn Sells began her life in the arts as a ballerina at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and, before that, in the Cincinnati Ballet. In 2021, she became the first chief diversity officer for the Metropolitan Opera. Previously, she held positions in the private and public sectors including Reuters America, the National Basketball Association, Columbia University School of Law, Harvard Law School, and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Lydia Abarca was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company - the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH), a troupe of women and men who became each other’s chosen family. She was the first Black Company ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, and an Essence cover star; she was cast in “The Wiz” and in a Bob Fosse production on Broadway.
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Diversity and Identity in Ballet
A budding ballerina named Virginia Johnson met Mitchell while a student at the NYU School of the Arts and became a founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem and, later, its artistic director. “In that first company we were an extremely diverse group of people,” Johnson says of the early days. “We were Asian, Mexican, black… I think the first white dancer didn’t come until 1970. But it was not about making a ‘black ballet company.’”
She continues, “It was to make people aware of the fact that this beautiful art form actually belongs to and can be done by anyone. The company gained momentum in the midst of the Black Power movement, Johnson recalls. “But there wasn’t a sense of militancy around the idea of making black people visible in this art form. It was more that he made dancers aware of the fact that they could define their own identity.
Dance Theatre of Harlem performs Concerto Barocco, choreographed by George Balanchine
Balanchine's Influence and Support
One of the people trying to expand the art form and promote integration was George Balanchine, who would later become a mentor to Arthur Mitchell. In 1933, the dancer Lincoln Kirstein wrote a letter to a director in Hartford, Connecticut introducing his new friend, Balanchine, and their joint aspirations to start a ballet. Kirstein called for a core of “16 dancers, half women, half men, half white and half negro.” What resulted was the creation of the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet, founded by Kirstein and Balanchine.
Despite resistance, Balanchine managed to bring several black dancers in as guest artists. Although Mitchell is often credited as the first black ballet dancer in NYCB, a little-known dancer named Arthur Bell was a student at the School of American Ballet in the late 1940s and performed with NYCB before making a career for himself in Europe. His story was all but forgotten by history when, in 1994, a reporter found him living in a homeless shelter, alone and destitute.
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“Balanchine was interested in African-American dancers, but Mitchell was not just a dancer to him,” Johnson recalls. “He was the realization of an idea that Balanchine had wanted to explore. When Mitchell joined NYCB, it released something in Balanchine. Balanchine choreographed specific roles for Mitchell when he was a principal at NYCB, including the world-renowned and groundbreaking pas de deux in Agon, and the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Triumph and Tribulations
In 1971, Dance Theatre of Harlem, billed as a “neo-classical ballet company,” officially debuted at the Guggenheim Museum to great acclaim. Later the same year, Balanchine and Mitchell co-choreographed the piece Concerto for a Jazz Band and Orchestra, which offered an unprecedented collaboration coupled with a platform for the emerging Harlem-based company.
Mitchell rose to fame as a principal dancer with NYCB from 1956 to 1969. When he left, he seemed to rebel against the homogenous world he had been immersed in, envisioning a larger space for dancers like himself to thrive. Virginia Johnson recalls, “Right from the beginning it was about diversity in the richness, which was very oppositional to the way that ballet was moving in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s in this country. At that time, ‘sameness’ was what was signified in ballet.
When Mitchell began Dance Theatre of Harlem, Balanchine gave him the rights to several ballets. This afforded Mitchell a repertoire of recognizable modern classics for his programs, which was invaluable for the fledgling company. Mitchell started Dance Theatre of Harlem with a strong base, and by 1979 it was touring internationally with a repertoire of 46 ballets.
Global Impact and Legacy
Through the 1990s, Dance Theatre of Harlem continued to break racial and political boundaries, to worldwide acclaim. They were the first American ballet company to perform in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, and in 1992, they made an international statement on their tour to South Africa at the tail end of apartheid. The company performed to a mixed crowd and brought their outreach principles to the townships, creating a dance program that still thrives today as Dancing Through Barriers.
Dance Theatre of Harlem went on hiatus due to financial difficulties from 2004 to 2012. “This means that there was a generation of little girls who didn’t see brown ballerinas,” Johnson says. “They didn’t have that seed planted of I could be up there too! I want to be a part of that!
A New Era
After 25 years as a principal dancer with the company (and a 40-year international career), Virginia Johnson returned to fill Mitchell’s shoes as the company’s artistic director in 2013. “When Arthur Mitchell invited me to step into his huge shoes, I really didn’t want to,” she says. “But I knew that the work needed to continue. There’s a particular challenge right now. In 1968 and 1980 and 1990, the novelty of Dance Theatre of Harlem and the extreme difference of the experience was something that was very powerful, whether audiences were used to going to the ballet or not. Nowadays, we’re in an electronic age where we don’t really understand or even appreciate the notion of the live performance of an art form that is so rigorous.
Bringing to a close a four decade-long chapter of dance history, Dance Theatre of Harlem Artistic Director Virginia Johnson has announced her retirement from the visionary company, set for the close of the 2022-23 season on June 30, 2023. Her tenure with this powerful presence in the world of ballet includes twelve years in her current role as Artistic Director, preceded by a staggering 28 years as a company member, highlighted by her distinction as a founding member and as a Principal Dancer.
As Ms. Johnson becomes Artistic Director Emerita, she will be succeeded as Artistic Director by current acclaimed DTH Resident Choreographer and School Director Robert Garland.
