Like so many other arts disciplines until recent years, American ballet was presumed white until proven otherwise.
Those who bravely did so are heralded with long-overdue recognition in “The Swans of Harlem,” a new book by Karen Valby that reveals the courage and pioneering achievements of five Black ballerinas at the Dance Theater of Harlem, including founding member and present-day Ballethnic dance coach Lydia Abarca Mitchell.
Mitchell joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes and Valby to discuss the beauty of Black ballet and the dancers who cemented its legacy in New York and beyond.
Interview highlights:
What inspired Valby to write a book on Black ballet trailblazers:
“ I am the adoptive mother of two Black girls. We live in Austin, Texas, a predominantly white city, and I discovered there was a Black dance studio in town. So, when my oldest was two years old, I signed her up for ballet classes. And this Black dance studio, Ballet Afrique, became maybe the most important institution in our family’s lives because it’s where my girls looked at themselves in a mirror in the studio, surrounded by other beautiful black girls, the black teacher at the front of the room, pushing them to be their best.”
She continued,” I had posted a video of myself pancaking my daughter’s ballet shoes with cheap drugstore makeup to match the color of her skin before the recital. I had no idea that this was a ritual women like Lydia Abarka Mitchell started back in the 70s at Dance Theatre of Harlem, but when I posted this video, an agent who lives in Harlem, who lives on the same block as one of the Swans of Harlem, contacted me and said, there are five former Principal ballerinas from the Dance Theater of Harlem who have started a legacy council because their pioneering achievements have been erased from history. Would you take a meeting? And the rest was history.”
On “The Swans” as being ambassadors and their deep connection with one another:
“The Swans were trained from teenagers, for the most part, to be ambassadors. Arthur Mitchell, rightly, would remind them every practice, every rehearsal, ‘You represent something bigger than yourselves. We are shocking the world. We are proving something that they said couldn’t be done, which is that we belong on the classical stage.’ But then in their third act, I think what this project together allowed them to do was move. Beyond the idea that they had to be ambassadors. And so what was such a delight and an honor in our years together was them just getting to be fallible, hopeful, regretful, mournful, joyful women with each other,” said Valby. She continued, “At heart, this is a story of friends who have had each other’s backs for 50 years. May we all be so lucky.”
More information about “The Swans of Harlem” is available here. Ballethnic’s upcoming performance, “All The Way Live 2,” at Sanford Porter Performing Arts Center, is on March 15 and 16.
