Jessica's Reviews > The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History

A powerful and proud Black lineage of goddesses who not only graced the stage but--through this book and more--have become legends and activists, bringing attention to so many "hidden" issues within a popular art form.

This book of collected memories, emotions, thoughts, and revelations surrounding their time with the famed Dance Theatre of Harlem can be summed up with a recurring line: "We were there too."

Lydia Abarca. Gayle McKinney-Griffith. Sheila Rohan. Karlya Shelton. Marcia Sells.

Before Misty Copeland, the ballet world had these five remarkable dancers (and many more dancers of color who will sadly go unrecognized by the mainstream media). These are their stories--their reclaimed dancing lives. This book shows great reverence for their legacy in order to help those who wish to follow their guidance and wisdom. "History isn't a one-person thing, or a one-group thing. It's going to take all of us."

[bookseller ARC review]
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note: above is my general review, but I'm a dance history researcher-student-educator so I'm going to go off a bit below...

Dance history (and really all areas of arts history, in every time period, across the world) often ignores/forgets/omits--whether intentional or not--the value and contributions of the Black women who are working, living, and dying as pioneering dancers in their respective dance genres/forms.

The general public and annual Nutcracker audience might not know this, but ballet is especially prone to racist and colorist ways of thinking/teaching, some of which are vividly described in this book. The current ballet industry across the world is also actively invested in ablest, sexist, elitist, transphobic, etc. modes based on hundreds of years of European "traditions" (see: (Re:) Claiming Ballet, Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance, American Dance: The Complete Illustrated History, and everything by the incomparable Brenda Dixon Gottschild)

So how do BIPOC dancers not only survive but thrive? And how do elder dance educators, researchers, and practitioners course-correct for the dance students who are eager to learn the full scope of dance history?

We listen to the stories of BIPOC dancers. We give them space. We create space. We publish. We present.

With dance gatherings and research conducted in spaces like the "Black Ballerina Magic Celebration" which resulted in the 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy Council later on. This was monumental not only for the eventual publishing of this book, but as a standard to be set for more communities of dancers to reconnect--whether formally or in a more private way--and talk. Listen. Learn. Remember.

With the publishing of critical and intersectional books such as this (see also: Urban Bush Women: Twenty Years of African American Dance Theater, Community Engagement, and Working It Out, Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet from Itself, Don't Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet, Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact, Banishing Orientalism: Dancing between Exotic and Familiar, Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century, Dance, Disability and Law: InVisible Difference, The People Have Never Stopped Dancing: Native American Modern Dance Histories, and so so so many more)

Personally, I'm also struck by the stark and honest memories of Arthur Mitchell that these women brought to light. In all of my dance history classes, anecdotal research was definitely missing when talking about BIPOC legends such as him. Maybe my teachers just glossed over any personal flaws or maybe they simply had little-to-no material to turn to when trying to uncover their personality; on the other hand, we have TONS of first-person accounts of Martha Graham, Margot Fonteyn, and Merce Cunningham.

So in reading about this icon's brash ego and "of-the-times" treatment of women (definitely a very Balanchine-esque patriarchal attitude with forced diets, dating restrictions, favoritism, colorism, etc.), I felt the threads of history finally weaving together.

It's okay to be critical of the people and things you love, especially in the arts. To be critical is to be honest. And Arthur Mitchell was a complex human living in a complex time in American dance history. To have this first-person context from the very women who felt his full range of emotions and actions is VITAL.

We--and we as in not just the dance world but the general public--need more critical exploration and emotional reclaiming of history.