The Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH), a leading ballet company and global ambassador for excellence and diversity, will bring its 55th anniversary season to New York City Center April 11–14 with a program that promises to dazzle the eye, capture the imagination, and soothe the soul.
As the season celebrates both newly named Artistic Director Robert Garland and the 90th birthday of company founder Arthur Mitchell, DTH reaffirms that the future of ballet is in Harlem. Honoring Mitchell’s legacy and ushering in the next generation of his vision, this festival-style weekend of performances features audience favorites and new repertory alike.
Garland has constructed a season that honors DTH-founder Mitchell’s vision of presenting a mix of ballets acknowledging both his neo-classical background and African American heritage. The season also continues DTH’s mission of signaling the way forward for an artform learning to reverse a historic resistance to the Black dancing body and embrace a revitalizing African Diasporic sensibility and physicality.
Mitchell started the company with the help of master teacher Karel Shook, after the 1968 assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and passed it on to founding member Virginia Johnson. The company is both a catalyst for change and a testament to a legacy. After roughly 10 years as head of the company, Johnson handed the reins to Garland, who has been part of the DTH family since Mitchell invited him to join the company in 1985. Before assuming his current position, Garland wore a variety of hats, including principal dancer, resident choreographer, director of the DTH school, and more.
In an interview with the Amsterdam News, Garland said, “I’m so absolutely honored to be continuing a legacy that was started by a man who means so much to me.”
He added that DTH thrives due to the dedication and love of those who have supported it through the years and made this season possible. In addition to singing the praises of the Harlem community that has nurtured and sustained the company since its founding, he also sang the praises of current DTH Executive Director Anna Glass and the generations of alumni scattered around the country, some who have started ballet schools and companies of their own while others serve as teachers and administrators in dance departments at major universities.
Garland also boasted about DTH’s former Black ballerinas, such as Lydia Abarca, Marcia Seldes, Gayle McKinney, and Sheila Rohan, now immortalized in the new book “Black Swans of Harlem.” He mourned the passing of Lorraine Graves, a dancer whose presence commanded the stage in ballets like “Giselle” and whose photographic memory Mitchell relied on to help restage the DTH repertory around the world. Of course, Garland enthusiastically praised the current crop of company members who take the stage this season.
“This season would not have been possible without any of them, past and present,” Garland said before launching into a description of upcoming programs, which include a contemporary ballet by William Forsythe, ”Blake Works IV (The Barre Project)” and, for one night only, Garland’s “Return,” which the New York Times called a “witty fusion of ballet technique and street gait.” It is set to the music of James Brown and Aretha Franklin.
New works include the NY premiere of Robert Bondara’s “Take Me with You,” a contemporary pas de deux set to the music of Radiohead, and the company debut of George Balanchine’s “Pas de Dix,” a classical delight for 10 dancers.
With more than a touch of excitement, Garland said he hopes folks will “join us for the audacious vision for ballet that is Dance Theatre of Harlem from April 11–14.”