The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History

eBook, 420 pages

Published by Pantheon.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-31753-2

(1 review)

The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now.

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, a troupe of women and men who became each other’s chosen family. She was the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star; she was cast in The Wiz and in a Bob Fosse production on Broadway. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with other trailblazing ballerinas, including the young women who became her closest friends—founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells.

These Swans of Harlem performed for the Queen of England, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder, on the same bill as …

The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now.

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, a troupe of women and men who became each other’s chosen family. She was the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star; she was cast in The Wiz and in a Bob Fosse production on Broadway. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with other trailblazing ballerinas, including the young women who became her closest friends—founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells.

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. Out of a sisterhood that had grown even deeper with the years, these Swans joined forces again—to share their story with the world.

Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamour and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of both their historic careers and the sustaining, grounding power of female friendship, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.

1 edition

WhiskeyintheJar reviewed The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby

History Reclaimed

5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

“But what about Grandma?”

The Swans of Harlem was a reclaiming of historical Blackness in ballet as told through five women who were at the forefront. Lydia Abarca, Sheila Rohan, Gayle McKinney-Griffith, Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, and Marcia Sells were part of the founding core at Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem. If you're a fan of ballet, then you've probably heard of Arthur Mitchell, a dancer himself who broke color barriers and after Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, decides to start and build DTH, with a board including Cicely Tyson, Brock Peters, George Balanchine, Lincoln Kirstein, and Charles De Rose. Such powerful figures helped to contribute to DTH's success, along with philanthropists' donations, that the company was in constant need of, but the heart of the success lies in the …

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

“But what about Grandma?”

The Swans of Harlem was a reclaiming of historical Blackness in ballet as told through five women who were at the forefront. Lydia Abarca, Sheila Rohan, Gayle McKinney-Griffith, Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, and Marcia Sells were part of the founding core at Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem. If you're a fan of ballet, then you've probably heard of Arthur Mitchell, a dancer himself who broke color barriers and after Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, decides to start and build DTH, with a board including Cicely Tyson, Brock Peters, George Balanchine, Lincoln Kirstein, and Charles De Rose. Such powerful figures helped to contribute to DTH's success, along with philanthropists' donations, that the company was in constant need of, but the heart of the success lies in the dancers who sacrificed, worked, and understood the importance of what their mission was. Told in three acts, the book successfully tells their stories and brings you back to a world of the Civil Rights Movement, it's lingering effects, and the reclaiming of history.

He would build a ballet school in Harlem, the neighborhood that had raised him up. And because children deserve role models who show them what is possible, he would simultaneously establish the first permanent Black professional ballet company. Art is activism. Let the gorgeous lines of his dancers’ bodies serve as fists in the air.

The first Act was all about the building of the DTH and how each of the five women entered Arthur Mitchell's world. I enjoyed how we really got to not only know these women's individual stories but a part of their families. One thing is clear while reading this, rarely does anyone do it alone and the support these women's families gave them, made all the difference; it's not just the story of these women but generations. I also enjoyed how, while Mr. Mitchell was celebrated for his strength and perseverance, he wasn't canonized, he was a living breathing man who's personality was formed in a different era and had all the highs and lows of it (colorism is discussed). It added to the carrying over and intertwining of generational butterfly effects.

“We all understood this to be a higher calling,” says McKinney-Griffith. “Suddenly that step on pointe made a difference. We were a group of brown people, of all different shades from different cities and countries. For those of us who’d felt for so long adrift and like a lonely standard bearer— to look around and feel the power of numbers was just extraordinary. We were en masse, so we were protected. Can you imagine the energy that freed up? The freedom to just focus on our craft. We never had to justify to each other our right to ballet.”

The second Act, focused more on the five women's individual stories and when they finally left DTH to move on and explore other avenues in life. Intermingled with the individual women's stories were chapters that also continued the timeline of what was happening at DTH. This timeline see-sawing tripped me up as a reader a few times and I thought hurt the flow of the book.

When the evening’s moderator, WBUR culture and arts reporter Cristela Guerra, asks the members of the Legacy Council to discuss the importance of telling their stories now at this moment in history, McKinney-Griffith responds with terrific gravity. “Because we all have a voice,” she says, looking intently around the room. “And we all need to project that out into the world. Otherwise someone else is going to write our history. Or not.”

Act three and the conclusion of the book brought the eventual closing of Dance Theatre of Harlem (due to lack of funds) but the creation of the 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy Council. After seeing Misty Copeland hailed as the first Black ballerina (Copeland often works to praise those that came before her), erasing all of DTH's successes, which are accounted in the book, had these five women wanting to reclaim their spot in history, along with the many others that worked to make DTH a success (there's a touching moment where the women talk about the men of the company and how hard the AIDs crisis in the '80s and '90s hit them). Through their work with the Council, new names and trailblazers are being rediscovered and their history brought to light and preserved. Even if you're not a fan of ballet (there's terms used that assume you have at least a rudimentary understanding of the world) this was a great cultural and historical door into a moment in time that helped build and feed into the next generation of Black dancers.

He wasn’t a Black man who dared to dance ballet. He was a dancer who dared ballet to see and celebrate his Blackness.