by Martha Anne Toll | Apr 17, 2024 | News, The Latest
Ballet-book lovers are in for a treat this spring with the release of Karen Valby’s The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History (Penguin Random House, $29). Valby’s book, out April 30,...
by Lucy Van Cleef | Aug 3, 2021 | Career
Have you ever watched a dancer perform a particular variation over and over again, trying to pinpoint what makes their performance so special? Have you pored over books or magazines to learn about their paths to success? So many of us look up to the amazing dancers...
by Zita Allen | Feb 23, 2021 | Instagram, Profiles
Cicely Tyson, the legendary 96-year-old Black actress whose February 16 funeral at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church was attended by, among others, Tyler Perry, Lenny Kravitz, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, is remembered for performances that transcended...
by Cynthia Bond Perry For Dance Teacher | Jan 12, 2021 | Black History Month, Career, Instagram, Profiles
It is the urgency of going in a week or two before opening night that Lydia Abarca Mitchell loves most about coaching. But in her role as Ballethnic Dance Company’s rehearsal director, she’s not just getting the troupe ready for the stage. Abarca...
by Gavin Larsen | May 20, 2019 | Career, Profiles
Crystal Serrano never envisioned someday joining Dance Theatre of Harlem, the company founded by Arthur Mitchell to show the beauty and uplift of classical ballet on dancers of all colors. Her career began with Sacramento Ballet, which she joined after one year in...
by Amy Brandt | Apr 3, 2019 | News, Videos, Viral Videos
Today, April 4, marks the 51st anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s a date heavy with meaning and symbolism for Kevin Thomas and Marcellus Harper, the founding directors of Memphis-based Collage Dance Collective....
by Amy Brandt | Dec 2, 2018 | Career
“Keep the rhythm going,” calls Robert Garland, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s resident choreographer, from the front of the studio. Five company women pulse through a series of syncopated pony steps, upright arabesque sissonnes and funky, Motown-inspired...
by Madeline Schrock For Dance Magazine | Oct 8, 2018 | News
Twenty-one ballet organizations have come together to support the advancement of racial equity in professional ballet. They’re all part of The Equity Project: Increasing the Presence of Blacks in Ballet, a new effort being led by Dance Theatre of Harlem, The...