NEW YORK – A new book out this week, “Swans of Harlem,” shares the stories of women who performed during the first decade of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
The ballet company is now in its 55th year, and CBS New York’s Jessi Mitchell caught up with the dancers for a prance down memory lane.
“I was always the only Black ballerina in the room”
In 1969, at a time when Black ballerinas found few companies they could call home, Arthur Mitchell created one that was all their own.
“We found each other because nobody else would understand what we were going through, but we loved it,” said Lydia Abarca, who was with the company from the start until 1979.
Abarca grew up not far away in Harlem’s General Grant Houses, playing with friends while pretending to visit the places around the world where she would eventually perform.
“It’s not your address,” Abarca said. “It’s the love that you bring with you, the family love, and the imagination.”
Karlya Shelton came all the way from Denver to deliver transformative performances.
“I was always the only Black ballerina in the room, and to come here and find a place that had been created for people like me, being with other dancers that look like you, it was amazing,” said Shelton, who danced in Harlem from 1975 to 1983.
Marcia Wells had a similar experience at her Cincinnati company before coming to Harlem for camps and eventually performing full time from 1976 to 1979.
“It would just be, you know, a room full of mostly Black people doing ballet, where I’m not standing out, I’m not sticking out, that was amazing,” Wells said.
“When we’re no longer here, those words will still exist”
The sisterhood, as Sheila Rohan calls it, has endured all these years. They decided to share their story with the world.
“It was history, so why not?” asked Rohan, who was with the company until 1975. “And it was honest, good history, good hard-working people.”
Weaving together the women’s words was Karen Valby, whose own biracial daughters still face discrimination in dance, like requirements to wear pink shoes.
“My daughter is not going to be wearing pink shoes,” Valby remembered responding. “I’m not sure if you forgot about my daughter’s presence in the room, but she will be wearing tights and shoes that extend and protect her line. I think progress is slow.”
Prancing to advance progress, the women want to inspire imagination and determination in this generation’s dancers.
“When we’re no longer here, those words will still exist, our story exists, our voices now are on the audiobook,” said Wells. “It’s, on some level, immortality.”
A fifth company member, Gayle McKinney-Griffith, died last year before the book’s publishing.
“Swans of Harlem” is published by Penguin Random House. It is available right now everywhere you buy books.
Have a story idea or tip in Harlem? Email Jessi by CLICKING HERE.
