Dance Theatre of Harlem Returns, A Legacy Continues by Lisa Traiger

Dance Theatre of Harlem (@dancetheatreofharlem)

Robert Garland, artistic director (@robertgarland)

Presented by Washington Performing Arts (@washingtonperformingarts)

The National Theatre (@broadwaynatdc)

September 25 and 26, 7:30 pm

Written by Lisa Traiger

Cover photo by Rachel Papo

Celebrating a relationship forged more than a half century ago, Dance Theatre of Harlem returned to Washington, D.C., for a too brief weekend of performances September 25-26, 2026. With what amounts to the criminal closure of The Kennedy Center, the company took the stage at the National Theatre under the auspices of Washington Performing Arts, which as WPAS – the S was for society – first brought the then fledgling company to the city in 1973.

“Everybody in, nobody out” was WPAS’s mantra when founded in 1966 by the venerable one-time actor turned classical music impresario Patrick Hayes. As a press and marketing intern at WPAS in the 1980s, I saw Mr. Hayes, as almost everyone called him, nearly every day; though he had retired, he still came into the office daily and maintained relationships with world-renowned performing artists and funders, ambassadors and embassy officials, community groups and D.C. area arts supporters.

Across more than 50 years, Dance Theatre of Harlem was consistently brought to the District by WPAS, punctuating that “all in” mantra. In its heyday, the ballet company, founded by great African-American dancer Arthur Mitchell, made annual appearances in a dance series jointly produced by WPAS and The Kennedy Center aptly named Dance America, during my year there. DTH history began shortly after the 1968 assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The former New York City Ballet star and first Black principal dancer at the company was ready to sign on to direct the newly formed National Ballet of Brazil, when he got word of the assassination.

Mitchell made a U-turn, returning to New York to teach classes in his home community: Harlem. He initially instructed neighborhood children in a church basement, but with the imprimatur of his former ballet mentor and choreographer NYCB-founder George Balanchine, plus generous funding to purchase a building in Harlem, DTH became a force in the dance world. It blossomed in the 1970s dance boom, soon becoming a showcase for African-American and other dancers of color who had been frequently passed over by established White ballet companies.

Throughout Mitchell’s career, first at New York City Ballet and later with his own company, Washington, D.C., was a frequent stop. In the early 2000s, Miss Doris Jones, a founder of D.C. oldest continuously operating ballet studio, told me that Balanchine himself would send Mitchell on scouting trips to the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet on Delacort Street, NW, where he taught master classes and selected talented students for School of American Ballet summer programs.

Across the decades, the D.C. region has long served as a pipeline to and from DTH. The company’s star ballerina Virginia Johnson grew up and trained in the District, first under Therrell Smith before at 12 switching to Mary Day’s Washington School of Ballet. Johnson succeeded Mitchell at his request, when he retired. Presently, longtime DTH dancer and choreographer Robert Garland helms the company, which maintains its affinity for Balanchine dances, while preserving the vibrant repertoire Mr. Mitchell honed from choreographers, including the late former ballets Russes dancer Frederic Franklin, who restaged the company’s popular Creolized version of “Giselle,” and John Taras, whose vibrant Caribbean “Firebird” was adored by audiences at its 1982 creation and is equally so in revival. Garland, too, served a long tenure in DTH’s Kennedy Center summer intensive.

Mitchell was a classicist who believed that classicism in ballet belong to everyone. Current artistic director Garland, too, prizes classicism for what it can give to dancers. And Garland’s ballets, which could be categorized as neo-classical, like Balanchine’s, toggle between the studious geometry of line and angle and the exhilarating verve of bodies in motion, remain in motion.

The D.C. program shared the facets that allowed DTH and its dancers shine: fast-paced, tongue- or toe-twisting Balanchinesque footwork; story-telling and brilliant visual spectacle; and prominent placement of Black-American culture. The opener, Garland’s “Return,” from 1999, literally struts on stage, with five women in micro-miniskirts and pointe shoes, swish and sashay like they’re scoping out the potential at a nightclub. The men, in sleek unitards, carry themselves with the confidence of James Brown, their shoulders undulating, ribcages rolling. These dancers are “bad” in that grandiose slangy good way. They own the stage along with a selection of great groove music from Brown to Aretha to Alfred Ellis and Carolyn Franklin. A duet, “Call Me,” features the knotty, neoclassical partnering inspired by Balanchine, along with jazzy hips and vernacular fillips. And, how else can you close a work featuring some of the best soul and blues song stylists than with a soul train. To Brown’s “Superbad,” the dancers bring all the swagger, along with the applause-inducing old ballet tricks – whipping one-legged fouetté turns and parallel tiny traveling bourrée steps on pointe — the work finesses its finish.

What I love about Garland’s choreography is how his clean, brisk lines, hard-core technical demands, and love of American bravura, jazziness and confidence have at heart the characteristics of Balanchine’s best-loved works. Garland has simply pushed the dance more firmly into vernacular street and club styles and forms in the 21st century.

We see that most clearly in the Balanchine’s sunny, sometimes funny, “Donizetti Variations.” The 1960 work draws its musical inspiration from Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti’s “Don Sebastien” opera. It’s fully classical, with the ballerinas in above the knee, baby blue peasant dresses, the men in matching sleek tights and vested shirts. Here bravado takes hold with more endless bourrées – those tiny steps on pointe – along with quick skips and hops, again on pointe and other intricacies like breathless arabesque balances and playful intermingling of partners, trios and the entire cast of 11. While I’ve seen “Donizetti” before, I’ve never experienced the work with its final comic surprise. Amid the rapid footwork and dancers changing places, one stumbles, then she calls out, “Oh, I hurt my toe.” This moment, in a Balanchine ballet, no less, had me in a doubletake, questioning if I had hallucinated. But, no, it really happened.

The evening closed with the company’s piece de resistance – a revival of its signature “Firebird,” which premiered in 1982 and was a mainstay during the DTH’s Kennedy Center touring era. With vivid sets and costumes designed by the incomparable multi-hyphenate artist Geoffrey Holder the stage is set like a fantastical tropical forest paradise. The original “Firebird” was created by Michel Fokine, choreography, Alexandre Benois, costumes and Igor Stravinsky, music, for the legendary Ballets Russes. Dance Theatre of Harlem’s production maintains the Russian folktale about a mystical firebird with supernatural powers, a lost-in-the-forest prince who comes across evil sorcerer that turns enemies into malevolent creatures, and a captive princess, who, of course, falls for the prince. The premise is run-of-the-mill in the story ballet world, but in the able choreographic vision of the late John Taras, he revived and reenvisioned the work for a new generation.

Amid Stravinsky’s enticing musical narrative and its opulent crescendoes, Ariana Dickerson inhabits the Firebird with fierce, stolid intensity; there’s nothing retiring nor swanlike in her stern

and authoritative control, her piercing stare. She is, undeniably, queen of the forest. The Beautiful Maidens waft and weave in their flowing draped tunics creating circling forest dances, until the Creatures of Evil – looking like swamp monsters with long tongues, bulging eyeballs, crab walk and slither. The company invited students from University of North Carolina School of the Arts to enhance its ranks for these extra parts. This battle of evil versus good, as old time, while ever green, remains captivating for its visionary reimagining an iconic classic in a New World Caribbean setting, which, like the company’s Creolized “Giselle,” is perfectly suitable for both its dancers and audiences. The stunning apotheosis when the Firebird in her sparkling, red feathered tutu literally flies – a near-religious experience.

Let’s say a little prayer that Dance Theatre of Harlem will make a return visit to Washington soon.

Lisa Traiger  (she/her) (@dcdancewatcher) has been an arts journalist and critic since 1985. She wrote the dance column for The Washington Post Weekend section from 1999 to 2014. She edited From the Green Room, Dance/USA’s online eJournal, from 2008 to 2022. As a freelance dance critic for The Washington Post her reviews appeared in the Style section from 1997-2006.! You can read more about Lisa on our STAFF page!