Review Of Dance Theatre Of Harlem 2024 Season: “The Future Of Ballet Is In Harlem”

By Ennaid Photos: DTH My newly found friend, an African immigrant and resident of Harlem contemplating a post graduate degree, accompanied me to The Dance Theatre of Harlem’s (DTH) opening night for the New York City Center’s 2024 season. As the first dancers streamed onto the stage, she whispered to me that this was her first experience at an event of this kind, her eyes beaming in wonderment. Her reaction would have pleased the late Arthur Mitchell, who created DTH in 1969 during the height of the civil rights era, with the goal of “utilizing the art form of ballet not only as a tool for transformation, but also as a platform for social justice”.  DTH is currently a world renown ballet company with its soul rooted not just in Harlem, but of Harlem, and nurtured by an undeniably African American esthetic. The evening consisted of four performances.  The opener, Nyman String Quartet No. 2 choreographed by DTH’s new director Robert Garland, is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Mitchell and  John Wesley Carlos, the latter the bronze medalist who at the 1968 Olympics raised his fist in the symbolic ‘Black power’ gesture while he stood on the medal podium-...