Harlem dance company makes a comeback

This month marks the beginning of a new era for Dance Theatre of Harlem, a New York City cultural institution.

The ballet school and performance troupe placed its main company on hiatus in 2004, but recently announced plans to relaunch the company and will hold auditions in late February.

A debt of over $2 million forced DTH to shut down, but it was able to maintain its school and Dancing Through Barriers outreach program. Dance Theatre of Harlem II, a small training company for young artists, also remained in operation.

Virginia Johnson, a founding DTH member, has returned to the company as artistic director. She, along with executive director Laveen Naidu, is spearheading the effort to re-establish the DTH company by 2013.

DTH was founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook. Mitchell was the first African-American dancer ever to be made a permanent member of an American ballet company. After 15 years as a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, Mitchell returned to Harlem, where he grew up, and began to teach classes in a garage on 152nd Street.
Eventually, DTH grew into a 44-member professional ballet company. The troupe was unique because of its racial and cultural diversity.

“I met Mr. Mitchell and the original members of Dance Theatre of Harlem, including Virginia Johnson, in 1969. I was nine at the time, and the company came to my hometown of Cincinnati to perform,” said Marcia Sells, BC ’81 and Law ’84 and a former member of DTH who now serves as associate dean of community outreach programs at the School of the Arts. “That was the beginning of a revelation for me, because I had been taking ballet since I was four, and I was always the only black girl in class ... seeing the company in 1969 let me know that it was possible for me to do that.”

Sells said that she was “ecstatic” to hear about the reinstatement of the company. “There is so much, so much need for a place not just for African-Americans, but for Afro-Cubans, Brazilians, and dancers of a deep dark hue to find a ballet company. And to show that ballet is not exclusively a white European art form,” she said.

In-person company auditions will be held on Feb. 25. For dancers who are unable to travel to New York, DTH is offering a rare opportunity: digital auditions.

Sells applauded its efforts to modernize.

“It’s going to be interesting to audition digitally,” said Sells. “Football and basketball players send tapes to colleges and universities, because coaches won’t travel ... it’s better to have the biggest application pool possible. And it’s wonderful to know that talent is out there.”

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