Dance Theatre of Harlem’s iconic “Firebird” ballet, which took Paris by storm a few months ago, has now landed in New York where it promises to light up New York City Center (April 16-19) with the remount of the signature ballet critics declared “an instant hit” when it premiered back in 1982. At the time, “Firebird” was dubbed one of DTH’s signature works and a surefire sign that the groundbreaking Black ballet company had come into its own. Today, the remount of this iconic work is a powerful indicator of both the company’s impeccable artistry and the legacy project launched by founder Arthur Mitchell, with teacher and mentor Karel Shook, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in 1969.
The story of the “Firebird” remount of this 40+ year old ballet is indicative of both the power of Mitchell’s vision and current artistic director Robert Garland’s organizational acumen. At its heart, it’s indicative of the familiar saying that it takes a village to raise a child, only in this instance it applies to the organizational reach needed to remount a ballet like “Firebird” after decades. Here the village is DTH, the Harlem-based institution, its leadership, its dancers, both present, past, and future, and the far-flung community of Blacks in ballet DTH has created over the years.
In many ways, the remount was possible because all of the pieces of an intricate puzzle fell into place at the right time, DTH Artistic Director Robert Garland said during a recent interview. “The remount started, believe it or not, when American Ballet Theatre announced that Kevin Mackenzie was retiring and ABT’s Board chose Susan Jaffe, then Director of the North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), to take over. UNCSA chose former DTH ballerina Endalyn Taylor to replace her,” Garland said.
Endalyn Taylor says the journey for the folks at UNCSA started several years ago, “when a colleague, Dean Saxton Rose of the School of Music, came to me and asked if I could suggest a Stravinsky piece for the school’s symphony orchestra, preferably something they could do live, perhaps a ballet.” Without skipping a beat, Taylor suggested Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” And, since DTH’s “Firebird,” choreographed by John Taras to the Stravinsky score, was for her one of “the most magical,” things went from there. “We got the support of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute of the Arts, an organization that helps bring projects like this to life to create experiences for our students and faculty that elevate the art form and the educational experience and bring art to a higher level in the community.”
Community was the glue that held the project together — namely the far-flung community of present and past members of Dance Theatre of Harlem. While two of the ballerinas who originated the leading roles — Stephanie Dabney, the critically acclaimed first Firebird, and Lorraine Graves, the first Princess of Unreal Beauty — are no longer with us, former DTH dancer Charmaine Hunter played a key role in the remount. “I danced every role from the monsters and maidens and even ended up dancing the ‘Firebird,’” Hunter says. “I learned the roles because I hung out in the studio when Taras was staging the ballet on Stephanie,” Hunter says. Company members used to joke that she just needed to watch a dance to know it. Though she stopped dancing a few years ago, Hunter continued working in dance, first as DTH Ballet Mistress, then as Rehearsal Director, and more, for other productions. So, when she was asked to help restage “Firebird,” she leaped at the opportunity and worked with Alexandra Hutchinson, the star of the current production.
Alexandra Hutchinson’s star has been on the rise for quite some time, and now with the lead role in “Firebird,” it’s reached new heights. Hutchinson says she appreciates the invaluable coaching Hunter provided for such a technically challenging role. “Charmaine encouraged me to take it to new heights,” Hutchinson said when discussing the difficult task of stepping into a role created for another ballerina. Hunter describes the young Alexandra as “self-motivated and smart,” saying, “You can tell her something once and she gets it. If she doesn’t, by the time you catch her the next day, she’s perfected it. I have never worked with anyone so brilliant and so humble. And when she did the full run through, there was no ‘Oh let me stop. I need to start over.’ No, no, no. Her spirit is old-school. From the time you start, she’s in character from beginning to end.”
Like Charmaine, former DTH principal Donald Williams had the privilege of working with John Taras and Arthur Mitchell when the role of the Prince/Young Man was created for him decades ago, and now he has been able to share his insights with Derek Brockington, who dances the lead in the current production. Brockington says Williams was “a great mentor for the role.” He adds, “One of his biggest notes was to really listen to the music, to go home, listen to it. He insisted that whatever you see on stage, you have to convince the audience that they can see it too. I have to fully believe the fantasy in order to make the audience believe it.” He also says watching the videos of former “Firebird” dancers Mel Tomlinson, Duncan Cooper, and Kip Sturm was eye-opening: “Watching the different versions allowed me to take inspiration for how to make the character my own.”
The community that makes “Firebird” possible also involves the far-flung network of former DTH dancers who dedicated their lives to the company but had to find new avenues for their passion when the company went on hiatus in 2004. Dancers Naimah Willoughby and Iyun Ashani Harrison, both once members of DTH’s corps de ballet, returning to help reconstruct key aspects of “Firebird” is proof that, as Iyun says, “reconstruction is a community effort across multiple generations.” Their memories helped complete the delicate act of breathing new life into a masterpiece to make sure it is not lost.
But the beauty of the community that made this production possible is its breadth. “Firebird,” after all, is a major ballet that requires a large cast, elaborate scenery, and costumes, and pulling that together was a massive undertaking. It takes a village. Garland drew on dancers from Endolyn Taylor’s North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA) to augment the company’s talented corps de ballet and appear as monsters and maidens. Then there are the amazingly stunning costumes and sets originally designed by the brilliantly multi-talented Trinidadian artist Geoffrey Holder, who passed in 2014. Leo, the son of Holder and dancer Carmen de Lavallade, took on the awesome task of restoring the costumes and the vividly color-splashed enchanted forest located on some unnamed Caribbean island. With a deft hand and brilliant eye for detail, Holder made the Firebird’s world come to life, pulling the audience into its enchanting environment. Adding to it all was yet another, but essential, component: the music. This time, Stravinsky’s music comes to life with the help of the 58 Black classical musicians of the Gateways Festival Orchestra, who are drawn from leading symphony orchestras, elite conservatory faculties, and the international freelance community. “We share a focus and mission similar to DTH,” says Gateways Artistic Director Alex Laing. “We too are dedicated to enlightening and inspiring communities through the power of performance.”
While the orchestra appears, most nights, under award-winning conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson, on April 17 it will be led by Pulitzer-Prize-winning conductor/composer Tania León, whose storied career was launched when, shortly after arriving here from Cuba, Arthur Mitchell made her DTH’s first music director. And, if the DTH community couldn’t get any bigger, even before the curtain goes up at City Center, an international audience of millions of viewers of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony was invited to join DTH’s community when Ballerina Misty Copeland received a standing ovation wearing Geoffrey Holder’s historic “Firebird” costume, during a presentation spotlighting the movie “Sinners.”
As former DTH dancer Naimah Willoughby said during a recent interview, “Mr. Mitchell groomed us to perform for something larger than ourselves,” and in this case, that something is a legacy that lives on because of an ever-growing community of Black ballet dancers and the audience that appreciates and supports them.