The Swans of Harlem
Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History
Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now. “This is the kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!” —Misty Copeland, author of Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy “Utterly absorbing, flawlessly-researched…Vibrant, propulsive, and inspiring, The Swans of Harlem is a richly drawn portrait of five courageous women whose contributions have been silenced for too long!” —Tia Williams, author of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde 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 company 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.
Reviews with the most likes.
I'm not a ballet person, I can't say that I have even a passing interest in it, that would be overstating my level of interest in the topic, I picked up this book because it was one of last week's new nonfiction titles at my library and went in with no idea of what it was about.
There's a rather big chunk of this book that I found a bit meandering and sometimes a little hard to follow (even though these ladies are really bad ass and I assume that someone who has an interest in dance company dynamics and is better at remembering names than me might feel differently about just how meandering that part is) and that I was therefore not crazy about. That being said, the last 20/25% of the book is so packed with poignancy it made the more meandering part worth sticking with. The parts about remembering the dance partners they lost to the AIDs epidemic and the reunion between the older ballerinas and Misty Copeland were so beautifully and impactfully described that it was downright devastating.
Seriously though, this book would make a fantastic movie or show.
I liked that at the end the author shows that even when people do want to remember it's easy to lose track of people who paved the way and that it's important to share the duty to remember and honor them especially when they are part of a marginalized group which is routinely erased from their own history.
