May 7, 2024 • 34 mins
Today we present the second of two episodes featuring Karen Valby, author of The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History. The book records the largely forgotten stories of five Black ballerinas who changed the art form. Their stories are surprising and vivid and poignant… and totally worth your time if you enjoyed our most recent season of The Turning.
In our second episode of the series, Karen Valby speaks with former ballerina and founding member of the Dance Theater of Harlem, Sheila Rohan. You can buy The Swans of Harlem here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/716415/the-swans-of-harlem-by-karen-valby/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, it is Erica.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is the second part of a special guest series
for The Turning. If you missed part one, I want
to jump in and tell you about a new book
called The Swans of Harlem. Five Black Ballerinas, fifty years
of sisterhood and their reclamation of a groundbreaking history. In it,
writer Karen Balby records the largely forgotten histories of five
black ballerinas who changed the art form today. In our
(00:31):
second of the series, Karen speaks with former ballerina Shila Rohan.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In every possible way. Sila Rohan was an unlikely ballerina.
As a child, she survived polio and the temporary loss
of her legs. Dance was essential to her healing and
to her life as an artist. When she first joined
the Dance Theater of Harlem, Sheila was a twenty seven
year old mother of three young children. She had long
(01:01):
since put away her point shoes. It was her sister,
Nanette Beardon, who saw the notice in the New York
Times that Arthur Mitchell was looking for black, classically trained dancers,
and she convinced her baby's sister to make the trek
from Staten Island up to Harlem. Under the tutelage of Mitchell,
Sheila would travel the world, performing on the grandest of stages.
(01:25):
Now in her eighties, she continues to challenge expectations of
what a dancer looks like. Welcome Sheila, Hey, Karen, Sheila,
your journey to becoming a professional ballerina began in such
dramatic fashion. You were diagnosed with polio at seven years old.
(01:48):
Can you just tell me a little bit about being
in a house of seven sisters and losing control of
your legs?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well, yes, I get you couldn't imagine how traumatic it
was for my mother and my sisters. I'm even thinking
now that I was younger than seven. The polio epidemic
was already in the environment at that time. I remember
it started. I had a terrible headache. I had been ill,
(02:19):
like say a flu or a cold or something, so
I was at home. I remember I called out to
my sister to tell her that I had a pain
in my head. Then I really started feeling ill, and
of course they called a doctor. I don't remember going
(02:40):
to the hospital, but he diagnosed me, and I keep
the memory of when I overheard a conversation between my
mother and the doctor and he says, you never know
how these things go. He said she could be crippled.
(03:00):
And when I heard that, I just was determined.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
No.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I had decided in my little mind that that was
not going to happen. And I recommend that to everyone.
And I said, no, I am not going to be crippled.
I think my body just took it from there.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And you do regain use of your legs. The braces
come yeah, And the doctor says to your mother, what.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I need exercise? He recommended exercise classes to build muscles
in my legs. And then the only exercise we knew
or the dance studios. I guess maybe nowadays I would
take gymnastics or go to the gym, but then it
was danced. So we found a studio, but it was
(03:54):
a neighborhood school, ballet, tap and contemporary.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Your mother was keeping food on the table for seven girls.
Was dance classes a luxury? Did she have the money
to pay for those classes?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
My sister Nannett and also Evelyn, they were the two
oldest sisters and they were working. They were able to
scrape together the money. But then, you know what was
the five dollars? You know, back then we took the forties.
We're took me to that in nineteen forties and fifties.
But even so, you know, if you only had twenty dollars,
(04:33):
five dollars is a lot. So but they managed, yes,
and I went there for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Chila, you quickly outgrow your neighborhood Staten Island Studio, and
the teacher says you deserve better training. Your sister, Nanette,
who's married at this point to the famous artist RAMAYR. Bearden,
says she'll pay for you to take classes in Manhattan.
Can you talk about the support she showed you as
a young artist.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
From the very beginning when we started making the trips
into Manhattan. She was excited as I was. She was
very pleased because she loved dance herself. I think she
wanted to be a dancer.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
She would buy my point shoes, my tights, and you know,
my leotade and my little skirts.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And it's not just that she was sort of funding
your dance education. She was taking you to see the ballet.
Oh yeah, wasn't she.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, my first New York City ballet, Nutcracker, we went
to see.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, it was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, what was that like sitting in the audience and
seeing professional ballet.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Oh yeah, it was like, how could I even think
about doing the ballet? Being on stage and looking like that?
What do I have to do to get there to
attain this?
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Do you have a sense at this point in your
training that there is a place for a young black
ballerina on a stage like that?
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Not ballet?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I mean I've seen other dances, like on Broadway and
in other dance companies. Modern dance company like Martha Graham
always had black dancers, but not really for myself. I
think I didn't believe that I could attain the level
of excellence that has to be done, and then what for?
(06:39):
Who's going to hire me? So I was doing it
much because the love of it. At that time. I
wasn't thinking career. I know my sister Nanett was. I
see that later on. I see that she was trying
to build me up to get me to be a
dancer period, not just the ballerina.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
What did you love about it? What about the art
form spoke to you?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
The way that classical ballet creates and interprets movement. I
love the lines, the graceful arms, just the technique itself,
trying to learn the purouettes and holding the arab esque,
and every day you were working towards something. Every day
(07:29):
you want to get your leg higher, you want to
get your muscles stronger, and later on you have to
learn to listen to the music. As you get older
and the training advances, you learn. Well, they did pour
the bra because of this. You put some meaning to it,
but it was just the challenge of learning and wanting
(07:53):
to express yourself with this technique. Are my toes? And
then they didn't end. Were you to soften up the shoe.
They just put your foot in there, laced them up
and expected the shoe to break in As you work.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Your education, your dance education is interrupted when you're eighteen
and you and your childhood sweetheart get pregnant and you
realize you're going to have your first child. How sad
were you to lose those saturdays in a studio.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yes it was sad, but I was trying to accept it.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
You know that happened, and now I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
After your son. You have two daughters. You've largely hung
your point shoes up because of the demands of motherhood,
but you're still very much dancing and you're deep into
an art scene in Staten Island. Can you tell me
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
A group of us, always involved in the theater, dance, singers, musicians,
we came together and we barred, okay, we poor people artists.
You would bother my child will take dance class and
you would do the pottery. And we had that going on,
(09:31):
and so I met artists from all over all races black, White, Asian, Spanish,
and I guess it was the late fifties or so
sixties we created the Brothers and Sisters United, which was
(09:51):
our acknowledgement of the civil rights movement, you know it
with a whole revolution to know you as blackness back
to Africa? Who are we and why are we here?
So Brothers and Sisters United, that's what that company was about.
And we were all young, you know. We had a
(10:14):
director and we had a choreographer, but we all really
didn't know what we were doing, but we were doing it. Yeah,
And we did one performance at Lincoln Center. They used
to put up this platform around the fountain, and we
managed to get a booking there, so it was a
(10:36):
big deal for us. And we did our program which
was about slavery. Was that kind of a story of
song and dance and music. Yeah, it was a community endeavor.
We didn't make any money. We didn't have any money.
You know, you went out of pocket most of the
(10:56):
time to do things. But that's how we started. We
also had, which was most spiritual endeavor, was the universal
Temple of the arts, and they were painters and musician writers.
So we also would just gather together to try to
(11:18):
find out who am I. It was that sixties.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
You know, who am I? Where are we? Where are
we going? You know that type of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Those are the great questions posed by.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Art, and it was a wonderful time. It was a
wonderful time. It was some awakenings at that time.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, you're deeply part of this local arts scene. You're
a twenty seven year old mother of three, a very
full life. And Nanetta calls like she always does, and
she tells you about a man named Arthur Mitchell auditioning dancers.
(12:02):
Can you just tell me about that?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Call my sister then it She was a woman about town.
She had a lot of connections and contacts. So she said,
someone told me about Arthur Mitchell starting a program. That's
what I thought it was a program up in Harlem,
and I, you know, I was like, well, now do
(12:26):
I want to go traveling way up there? But anyway,
I went. I went to the audition.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Did you know it was an audition for classical dancers?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, I knew he was looking for ballet. And I
didn't know who Arthur Mitchell was. We didn't have Google then.
But Nanette knew of him. She knew of him and
his story. And so I went and I passed the audition.
You know, he told me to come back.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
You didn't tell Arthur that you were a twenty seven
year old mother of three? What did you tell him?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I don't remember ever.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You know, it wasn't like you sat down to an interview.
It was very informal. He said, you you, you, you
come back, you know, And I didn't speak on it.
It wasn't an issue right then. I just lied.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
What was obvious in the ballet world that told you
you don't announce yourself as a mother of three children
to a director.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Why, oh well no, well then he would have just
said goodbye. I'm almost like automatically, I mean, what are
you doing here? You know, if I had already made
a name for myself and was a well known dancer.
Maybe you'd get an audition, but no, that was unheard of,
(13:56):
to the.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Point that when your kids would come to the school
on Saturdays, they were told to refer to you as
their aunt. Yes, we made a game of it, the
daughter of a deeply practical immigrant mother who wasn't convinced
(14:18):
that giving up your part time job that paid a
reliable salary for some ballet company was a good idea.
Your husband thought there was beauty in your decision. It
is very notable that in the late sixties you have
a husband that says, go pursue your dream. I'll figure
(14:42):
it out with the kids. We'll figure it out with
the kids. Can you talk a little bit about his
support of your life as a dancer.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
In Devas on Staten Island, the brothers and sisters United
and whatever he was a part of he was always
he was a part of this community, and he knew
me in a sense that this is what I did.
This was just what I did, anything to do with
(15:11):
the theater and getting people together and dance and all that.
So no, he didn't object at all. You know, it
was hard on us because a little bit of stipend
that I got. It was like carfare and lunch money.
It wasn't really you know, anything you could depend on.
(15:33):
But we made it through.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
We managed.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Tell me about that first year at Dance Theater of Harlem.
Arthur Mitchell is mustling together this company. He's training you
all to be unified and performance ready. What was the pace, like,
how hard were the days?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
WHOA, yes, because we started at nine, so you know,
my day started at seven getting up tall nine with
exercise classes.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
We would have.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Body conditioning and pilates, then company class and then hours
of rehearsal and then you break and then you would
have to come back in the evening to dance. So
it was very vigorous.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Tell me about racing for the Staten Island ferry at
the end of a long night.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yes, And if you missed that boat, you know, you
wait another half hour, and after like eleven or so,
you waited an hour.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
You know. And talking with the other Swans during the
reporting of this book, they talk about going to clubs
afterwards or getting together for drinks. You had a very
different life. You were rushing home to see if there
was food for school lunches the next day.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Homework and all of that.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, this is a lot of juggling and a lot
of sacrifice you're making. What made it all worth it?
Why did you want to be a part of the
dance Theater of Harlem? What was it giving you?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I found out, We found out that Arthur Mitchell really
had a vision. He talked to us about the civil
rights movement and how we are a part of that
change in the country.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
He would speak to.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Us about how blacks weren't accepted in the theater, how
jobs are very scarce, and he was very fortunate that
balance sheet picked him out. But that's one out of
a thousand, you see. So after a while it became
I'm a part of something. It's not just I'm out
(17:54):
there trying to audition and trying to be in somebody's company.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
We were hard at something.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Tell me about why. A year into the company's life
you decide I've got to tell Arthur Mitchell I have
kids at home.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I guess it became like an issue. We were progressing
move up to a certain level, and he was preparing,
you know, for touring. Well, I didn't know how it
was going to go, and I was trying to prepare
myself to accept whatever happened. But he just said, you
(18:37):
should have told me I could have given you a
little bit more money than you were making, so long
as it doesn't interfere with the work we're doing.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Then he was fine with it.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And sure enough you saw a little bump in your page.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Yeah, right, a little bumpy.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
But he didn't change towards me. I was still a
part of the group. I still got corrections, and he
still you know, noticed me. It's not like, oh well,
I'd just write her off, you know.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
No.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
In conversations, some of the women expressed having this very
complicated relationship with mister Mitchell that was kind of like
a father figure persona in their lives, and they were
so sensitive to his approval and craved his approval and
(19:37):
were flattened by his disapproval. It seemed like you had
a slightly more mature relationship with him. What was the
dynamic between you and Arthur and what do you think
accounted for it? You're not holding him up on a high.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I think he respected me and that I, you know,
was a mother, and that I was still trying to
work at my craft, and I did try to hold
my own I was always trying to get better and
working and taking my correct soul, and I was a
(20:15):
part of the group.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
He didn't hold the same power over you.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Well, I think it's because I was more mature, had
a husband, you know. Yeah, I was a little afraid
of him. Like if he would yell at you for
something you were doing wrong, or something happened on stage,
of course I would feel something. But some of the
girls would get devastated, you know, to the point of tears.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
But I just think.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Because I was a little older, he didn't get under
my skin. Yeah, it's more I felt bad for the
others when it happened to the other ladies. I felt
for them that they had to go through it.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Do you remember a moment of witnessing him just tearing
a ballerina up?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well, I guess tearing him up is kind of harsh,
but yeah, you know, you'd hear things like, yeah, you're
getting fat. You couldn't do that step because your thighs
are too big, you know, ugly thing, you know, mean things.
You didn't take that correction I gave you last time,
(21:31):
so you're stupid.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
He could be very mean.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
As I did find out that he wasn't the only
one that this was, like how they are an ego?
You know, this is my company and you.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Just do as I say.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yeah, he's the boys too, especially the men. He really
gave it to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Did you have a specific role in the company in
which people thought of you as a soft place to land?
Would people turn to you as for a source of comfort?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I think so yes. I think I was like Auntie, Yeah, Aunty.
Walter Rains and I were the oldest in the company
at that time, so we were like Marvin Pop.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Can you talk about the magic of the life what
Dance Theater of Harlem gave you in terms of taking
you around the world.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
The first trip to Europe when we went to Italy.
Before that, we had did the Caribbean and that was
good because I had never traveled and that was wonderful.
But then to go to Europe, to go to Italy
and Amsterdam and some of the places, you know, like
(23:01):
that was really overwhelmed.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I couldn't believe it. You know, it's just me, I
really hear.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And audiences loved you.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
All, Oh, they loved us.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Encore after on, Like it was really amazing. I remember thinking, well,
are they serious. We can't be that good. I mean,
what's so good about us that they're raving like this?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
You know, I can't believe it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, but we were proud of what we were doing,
and we were loving what we were doing. Even though
it was hard. I was glad I was doing it.
I felt fortunate that I've had this opportunity to do
it for however long it lasts.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Why did you leave the company when you did?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Because the work, the scheduling, the touring, it became too
much for me. The children were getting older.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You know, were you heartbroken to leave?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
I won't say heartbroken. It was sad to leave the company,
and also my friends because they were also my family.
But as you know, I didn't really leave because I
stayed and I worked in the school. He was building
(24:27):
a school then, so I became a teacher. I started
with the little ones, and then I still took company class,
and I acted as an alternate if someone was out
with the women, and I was always allowed to, you know,
watch rehearsals, and so I was around all the time,
(24:49):
so to speak.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Dancers often talk about how their careers are famously short.
But one of the things I love most about your life.
Is that your big this role came to you at
fifty when you were cast in Gordon Parks film, Martin.
Can you share what it was like to put point
shoes back on at fifty years old?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah? Yeah, but you know, I'd known dancers, and even
now with everyone knowing so much about the physical body
and what it can do, there are dances fifty or
so in dance companies. They may be in the core,
they may be demi soloists, but it happens. Maybe back
(25:35):
then it didn't, Yeah, Sheila.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
When you're in your seventies, you join a dance group
called the five plus Ensemble for dancers over the age
of fifty who still have the juice to perform. I
wonder if you could just talk about the feeling of
taking the stage for a performance at seventy five as
opposed to a nervous young woman at twenty.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
When you're younger, it's like, I want to please a choreographer.
I want to do the best I can in this
part so that I can be a good part of
this production. It's always someone other than you outside of you.
Am I doing It's right? What do I have to
(26:21):
do next? Now that I'm older. It's just a pleasure
to be here. This is who I am, this is
my expression. I offer it to you and hope that
you can get something.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Out of it.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Just look, just listen, just enjoy or not. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
The filmmaker Gabrie Christa saw one of those performances of
the five plus ensemble and she told me it struck her.
Why don't we see more older people on stage? Because
this is where the power is. This is performers at
peace and at home with their bodies. And she made
(27:13):
a beautiful short film about you called Sheila last year,
and it's such an ode to your form. Just to
see you sitting in a leotard and then standing up
and dancing. There's so much history in your body and
(27:35):
your movements. What is your relationship with your body at
eighty two and have you been at peace with the
aging process?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Yes, I believe I am. I still do exercise yoga, I.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
No longer do a bar no, And.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I'm very happy and appreciative that I was able to
do or I did for so long. It helped me
to know myself and it felled that creative need. When
we came together for the ensemble, I wasn't even nervous
about performing, whereas you know other time throughout my whole career,
(28:20):
I was a nervous type of person. But yeah, like
you say, more at peace and unfortunate that I managed
to get here, because I can imagine there are other
dancers and stuff who are very frustrated careers were cut
short or they had an injury that they had to
(28:41):
deal with. All Now I have to teach because I
can't dance. You know, you go through all of that,
and I'm good.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Sheila, You and the four other Swans started the one
hundred and fifty second Street Black Ballet Legacy Council in
twenty two because you were tired of your legacies being
forgotten by history. Since then, you've met every Tuesday afternoon
without fail. I've been lucky to sit in on several
of those meetings, and there was something so beautiful and
(29:15):
consistent about the way you women would come together. Last
year you lost Gail McKinney Griffith, one of the founding
members of the one hundred and fifty second Street Black
Beallet Legacy Council and a founding member of Dance Theater
of Harlem. I'm just wondering how comforting it is to
(29:36):
you to have been in such close communion with her
over the last few years.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Gail was always a light in our lives. Everyone will
say that to you. Let's just as you was. So
her passing is big that she's not here with us.
Latched onto the word, well, the meaning of sisterhood. That's
(30:07):
who we are. We're not just an alumni group coming
together for memoirs. We've known each other so long and
we got to know each other again.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Does it provide any comfort to know that she put
her story down on record?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yes, yes it does, because I want everyone to know her.
She was an angel. She was human, you know, ups
and downs, in and outs, but basically essence, she was
an angel.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, just using your wisdom and your wide lens, what
would you what would you say to young dancers who
had all of the ambition and the hunger starting their careers.
How would you counsel them to hold onto themselves like
(31:09):
you really did yourself.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
You have to try to know yourself, really try to
grow up inside, because putting a dance on the stage
has obstacles. You see, it's not just the creative spirit
(31:34):
and the creative source. See, that's in you. But then
you have to deal with business. You have to deal
with a production and that's not always a creative, spiritual environment.
So you have to create that and have that and
(31:56):
build that within yourself. No one doesn't want to see
you dance, that's their problem, you see. You have to
try to know yourself as best you can and be
able to deal with the obstacles and the criticisms and
(32:18):
the on equality of what happens in the theater. I mean,
it's worldwide and in some way you may make a change.
These young dancers now, they may make a big change
in the theater. This could be a revolution for them, evolution,
(32:38):
you see, to make that change because we see there
are more black dances that we get to see, and
you see how fabulous they are. See Alvan Elliot has
some of the to me, the greatest dancers in the world,
and that includes Russia, you.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Know, the French.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But we need to be used and it's coming because
nobody wants to put up with that foolishness anymore. I
think it's just now. It's still a problem. It's still
a problem, but don't let it stop you, because like
(33:19):
we just said, a change is coming. You're going to
be part of that change. So have faith in your
artistic abilities. You know that you've been gifted with it's
a gift.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Thank you, Sheila, Thank you so much for this conversation
and for all our conversations, and mostly thank you so
much for the example of how one can be an
artist in this world.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
And thank you Karen for for telling our stories.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
That was Sheila Rohan talking with Karen Bealby, the author
of The Swans of Harlem, which is available wherever books
and audio books are sold. And remember keep an eye
out for season three of The Turning and thanks for listening.
Hi, it is Erica.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is the second part of a special guest series
for The Turning. If you missed part one, I want
to jump in and tell you about a new book
called The Swans of Harlem. Five Black Ballerinas, fifty years
of sisterhood and their reclamation of a groundbreaking history. In it,
writer Karen Balby records the largely forgotten histories of five
black ballerinas who changed the art form today. In our
(00:31):
second of the series, Karen speaks with former ballerina Shila Rohan.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In every possible way. Sila Rohan was an unlikely ballerina.
As a child, she survived polio and the temporary loss
of her legs. Dance was essential to her healing and
to her life as an artist. When she first joined
the Dance Theater of Harlem, Sheila was a twenty seven
year old mother of three young children. She had long
(01:01):
since put away her point shoes. It was her sister,
Nanette Beardon, who saw the notice in the New York
Times that Arthur Mitchell was looking for black, classically trained dancers,
and she convinced her baby's sister to make the trek
from Staten Island up to Harlem. Under the tutelage of Mitchell,
Sheila would travel the world, performing on the grandest of stages.
(01:25):
Now in her eighties, she continues to challenge expectations of
what a dancer looks like. Welcome Sheila, Hey, Karen, Sheila,
your journey to becoming a professional ballerina began in such
dramatic fashion. You were diagnosed with polio at seven years old.
(01:48):
Can you just tell me a little bit about being
in a house of seven sisters and losing control of
your legs?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well, yes, I get you couldn't imagine how traumatic it
was for my mother and my sisters. I'm even thinking
now that I was younger than seven. The polio epidemic
was already in the environment at that time. I remember
it started. I had a terrible headache. I had been ill,
(02:19):
like say a flu or a cold or something, so
I was at home. I remember I called out to
my sister to tell her that I had a pain
in my head. Then I really started feeling ill, and
of course they called a doctor. I don't remember going
(02:40):
to the hospital, but he diagnosed me, and I keep
the memory of when I overheard a conversation between my
mother and the doctor and he says, you never know
how these things go. He said she could be crippled.
(03:00):
And when I heard that, I just was determined.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
No.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I had decided in my little mind that that was
not going to happen. And I recommend that to everyone.
And I said, no, I am not going to be crippled.
I think my body just took it from there.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And you do regain use of your legs. The braces
come yeah, And the doctor says to your mother, what.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I need exercise? He recommended exercise classes to build muscles
in my legs. And then the only exercise we knew
or the dance studios. I guess maybe nowadays I would
take gymnastics or go to the gym, but then it
was danced. So we found a studio, but it was
(03:54):
a neighborhood school, ballet, tap and contemporary.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Your mother was keeping food on the table for seven girls.
Was dance classes a luxury? Did she have the money
to pay for those classes?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
My sister Nannett and also Evelyn, they were the two
oldest sisters and they were working. They were able to
scrape together the money. But then, you know what was
the five dollars? You know, back then we took the forties.
We're took me to that in nineteen forties and fifties.
But even so, you know, if you only had twenty dollars,
(04:33):
five dollars is a lot. So but they managed, yes,
and I went there for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Chila, you quickly outgrow your neighborhood Staten Island Studio, and
the teacher says you deserve better training. Your sister, Nanette,
who's married at this point to the famous artist RAMAYR. Bearden,
says she'll pay for you to take classes in Manhattan.
Can you talk about the support she showed you as
a young artist.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
From the very beginning when we started making the trips
into Manhattan. She was excited as I was. She was
very pleased because she loved dance herself. I think she
wanted to be a dancer.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
She would buy my point shoes, my tights, and you know,
my leotade and my little skirts.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And it's not just that she was sort of funding
your dance education. She was taking you to see the ballet.
Oh yeah, wasn't she.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, my first New York City ballet, Nutcracker, we went
to see.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, it was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, what was that like sitting in the audience and
seeing professional ballet.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Oh yeah, it was like, how could I even think
about doing the ballet? Being on stage and looking like that?
What do I have to do to get there to
attain this?
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Do you have a sense at this point in your
training that there is a place for a young black
ballerina on a stage like that?
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Not ballet?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I mean I've seen other dances, like on Broadway and
in other dance companies. Modern dance company like Martha Graham
always had black dancers, but not really for myself. I
think I didn't believe that I could attain the level
of excellence that has to be done, and then what for?
(06:39):
Who's going to hire me? So I was doing it
much because the love of it. At that time. I
wasn't thinking career. I know my sister Nanett was. I
see that later on. I see that she was trying
to build me up to get me to be a
dancer period, not just the ballerina.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
What did you love about it? What about the art
form spoke to you?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
The way that classical ballet creates and interprets movement. I
love the lines, the graceful arms, just the technique itself,
trying to learn the purouettes and holding the arab esque,
and every day you were working towards something. Every day
(07:29):
you want to get your leg higher, you want to
get your muscles stronger, and later on you have to
learn to listen to the music. As you get older
and the training advances, you learn. Well, they did pour
the bra because of this. You put some meaning to it,
but it was just the challenge of learning and wanting
(07:53):
to express yourself with this technique. Are my toes? And
then they didn't end. Were you to soften up the shoe.
They just put your foot in there, laced them up
and expected the shoe to break in As you work.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Your education, your dance education is interrupted when you're eighteen
and you and your childhood sweetheart get pregnant and you
realize you're going to have your first child. How sad
were you to lose those saturdays in a studio.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yes it was sad, but I was trying to accept it.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
You know that happened, and now I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
After your son. You have two daughters. You've largely hung
your point shoes up because of the demands of motherhood,
but you're still very much dancing and you're deep into
an art scene in Staten Island. Can you tell me
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
A group of us, always involved in the theater, dance, singers, musicians,
we came together and we barred, okay, we poor people artists.
You would bother my child will take dance class and
you would do the pottery. And we had that going on,
(09:31):
and so I met artists from all over all races black, White, Asian, Spanish,
and I guess it was the late fifties or so
sixties we created the Brothers and Sisters United, which was
(09:51):
our acknowledgement of the civil rights movement, you know it
with a whole revolution to know you as blackness back
to Africa? Who are we and why are we here?
So Brothers and Sisters United, that's what that company was about.
And we were all young, you know. We had a
(10:14):
director and we had a choreographer, but we all really
didn't know what we were doing, but we were doing it. Yeah,
And we did one performance at Lincoln Center. They used
to put up this platform around the fountain, and we
managed to get a booking there, so it was a
(10:36):
big deal for us. And we did our program which
was about slavery. Was that kind of a story of
song and dance and music. Yeah, it was a community endeavor.
We didn't make any money. We didn't have any money.
You know, you went out of pocket most of the
(10:56):
time to do things. But that's how we started. We
also had, which was most spiritual endeavor, was the universal
Temple of the arts, and they were painters and musician writers.
So we also would just gather together to try to
(11:18):
find out who am I. It was that sixties.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
You know, who am I? Where are we? Where are
we going? You know that type of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Those are the great questions posed by.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Art, and it was a wonderful time. It was a
wonderful time. It was some awakenings at that time.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, you're deeply part of this local arts scene. You're
a twenty seven year old mother of three, a very
full life. And Nanetta calls like she always does, and
she tells you about a man named Arthur Mitchell auditioning dancers.
(12:02):
Can you just tell me about that?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Call my sister then it She was a woman about town.
She had a lot of connections and contacts. So she said,
someone told me about Arthur Mitchell starting a program. That's
what I thought it was a program up in Harlem,
and I, you know, I was like, well, now do
(12:26):
I want to go traveling way up there? But anyway,
I went. I went to the audition.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Did you know it was an audition for classical dancers?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, I knew he was looking for ballet. And I
didn't know who Arthur Mitchell was. We didn't have Google then.
But Nanette knew of him. She knew of him and
his story. And so I went and I passed the audition.
You know, he told me to come back.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
You didn't tell Arthur that you were a twenty seven
year old mother of three? What did you tell him?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I don't remember ever.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You know, it wasn't like you sat down to an interview.
It was very informal. He said, you you, you, you
come back, you know, And I didn't speak on it.
It wasn't an issue right then. I just lied.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
What was obvious in the ballet world that told you
you don't announce yourself as a mother of three children
to a director.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Why, oh well no, well then he would have just
said goodbye. I'm almost like automatically, I mean, what are
you doing here? You know, if I had already made
a name for myself and was a well known dancer.
Maybe you'd get an audition, but no, that was unheard of,
(13:56):
to the.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Point that when your kids would come to the school
on Saturdays, they were told to refer to you as
their aunt. Yes, we made a game of it, the
daughter of a deeply practical immigrant mother who wasn't convinced
(14:18):
that giving up your part time job that paid a
reliable salary for some ballet company was a good idea.
Your husband thought there was beauty in your decision. It
is very notable that in the late sixties you have
a husband that says, go pursue your dream. I'll figure
(14:42):
it out with the kids. We'll figure it out with
the kids. Can you talk a little bit about his
support of your life as a dancer.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
In Devas on Staten Island, the brothers and sisters United
and whatever he was a part of he was always
he was a part of this community, and he knew
me in a sense that this is what I did.
This was just what I did, anything to do with
(15:11):
the theater and getting people together and dance and all that.
So no, he didn't object at all. You know, it
was hard on us because a little bit of stipend
that I got. It was like carfare and lunch money.
It wasn't really you know, anything you could depend on.
(15:33):
But we made it through.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
We managed.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Tell me about that first year at Dance Theater of Harlem.
Arthur Mitchell is mustling together this company. He's training you
all to be unified and performance ready. What was the pace, like,
how hard were the days?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
WHOA, yes, because we started at nine, so you know,
my day started at seven getting up tall nine with
exercise classes.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
We would have.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Body conditioning and pilates, then company class and then hours
of rehearsal and then you break and then you would
have to come back in the evening to dance. So
it was very vigorous.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Tell me about racing for the Staten Island ferry at
the end of a long night.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yes, And if you missed that boat, you know, you
wait another half hour, and after like eleven or so,
you waited an hour.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
You know. And talking with the other Swans during the
reporting of this book, they talk about going to clubs
afterwards or getting together for drinks. You had a very
different life. You were rushing home to see if there
was food for school lunches the next day.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Homework and all of that.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, this is a lot of juggling and a lot
of sacrifice you're making. What made it all worth it?
Why did you want to be a part of the
dance Theater of Harlem? What was it giving you?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I found out, We found out that Arthur Mitchell really
had a vision. He talked to us about the civil
rights movement and how we are a part of that
change in the country.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
He would speak to.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Us about how blacks weren't accepted in the theater, how
jobs are very scarce, and he was very fortunate that
balance sheet picked him out. But that's one out of
a thousand, you see. So after a while it became
I'm a part of something. It's not just I'm out
(17:54):
there trying to audition and trying to be in somebody's company.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
We were hard at something.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Tell me about why. A year into the company's life
you decide I've got to tell Arthur Mitchell I have
kids at home.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I guess it became like an issue. We were progressing
move up to a certain level, and he was preparing,
you know, for touring. Well, I didn't know how it
was going to go, and I was trying to prepare
myself to accept whatever happened. But he just said, you
(18:37):
should have told me I could have given you a
little bit more money than you were making, so long
as it doesn't interfere with the work we're doing.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Then he was fine with it.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And sure enough you saw a little bump in your page.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Yeah, right, a little bumpy.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
But he didn't change towards me. I was still a
part of the group. I still got corrections, and he
still you know, noticed me. It's not like, oh well,
I'd just write her off, you know.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
No.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
In conversations, some of the women expressed having this very
complicated relationship with mister Mitchell that was kind of like
a father figure persona in their lives, and they were
so sensitive to his approval and craved his approval and
(19:37):
were flattened by his disapproval. It seemed like you had
a slightly more mature relationship with him. What was the
dynamic between you and Arthur and what do you think
accounted for it? You're not holding him up on a high.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I think he respected me and that I, you know,
was a mother, and that I was still trying to
work at my craft, and I did try to hold
my own I was always trying to get better and
working and taking my correct soul, and I was a
(20:15):
part of the group.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
He didn't hold the same power over you.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Well, I think it's because I was more mature, had
a husband, you know. Yeah, I was a little afraid
of him. Like if he would yell at you for
something you were doing wrong, or something happened on stage,
of course I would feel something. But some of the
girls would get devastated, you know, to the point of tears.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
But I just think.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Because I was a little older, he didn't get under
my skin. Yeah, it's more I felt bad for the
others when it happened to the other ladies. I felt
for them that they had to go through it.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Do you remember a moment of witnessing him just tearing
a ballerina up?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well, I guess tearing him up is kind of harsh,
but yeah, you know, you'd hear things like, yeah, you're
getting fat. You couldn't do that step because your thighs
are too big, you know, ugly thing, you know, mean things.
You didn't take that correction I gave you last time,
(21:31):
so you're stupid.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
He could be very mean.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
As I did find out that he wasn't the only
one that this was, like how they are an ego?
You know, this is my company and you.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Just do as I say.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yeah, he's the boys too, especially the men. He really
gave it to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Did you have a specific role in the company in
which people thought of you as a soft place to land?
Would people turn to you as for a source of comfort?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I think so yes. I think I was like Auntie, Yeah, Aunty.
Walter Rains and I were the oldest in the company
at that time, so we were like Marvin Pop.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Can you talk about the magic of the life what
Dance Theater of Harlem gave you in terms of taking
you around the world.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
The first trip to Europe when we went to Italy.
Before that, we had did the Caribbean and that was
good because I had never traveled and that was wonderful.
But then to go to Europe, to go to Italy
and Amsterdam and some of the places, you know, like
(23:01):
that was really overwhelmed.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I couldn't believe it. You know, it's just me, I
really hear.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And audiences loved you.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
All, Oh, they loved us.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Encore after on, Like it was really amazing. I remember thinking, well,
are they serious. We can't be that good. I mean,
what's so good about us that they're raving like this?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
You know, I can't believe it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, but we were proud of what we were doing,
and we were loving what we were doing. Even though
it was hard. I was glad I was doing it.
I felt fortunate that I've had this opportunity to do
it for however long it lasts.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Why did you leave the company when you did?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Because the work, the scheduling, the touring, it became too
much for me. The children were getting older.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You know, were you heartbroken to leave?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
I won't say heartbroken. It was sad to leave the company,
and also my friends because they were also my family.
But as you know, I didn't really leave because I
stayed and I worked in the school. He was building
(24:27):
a school then, so I became a teacher. I started
with the little ones, and then I still took company class,
and I acted as an alternate if someone was out
with the women, and I was always allowed to, you know,
watch rehearsals, and so I was around all the time,
(24:49):
so to speak.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Dancers often talk about how their careers are famously short.
But one of the things I love most about your life.
Is that your big this role came to you at
fifty when you were cast in Gordon Parks film, Martin.
Can you share what it was like to put point
shoes back on at fifty years old?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah? Yeah, but you know, I'd known dancers, and even
now with everyone knowing so much about the physical body
and what it can do, there are dances fifty or
so in dance companies. They may be in the core,
they may be demi soloists, but it happens. Maybe back
(25:35):
then it didn't, Yeah, Sheila.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
When you're in your seventies, you join a dance group
called the five plus Ensemble for dancers over the age
of fifty who still have the juice to perform. I
wonder if you could just talk about the feeling of
taking the stage for a performance at seventy five as
opposed to a nervous young woman at twenty.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
When you're younger, it's like, I want to please a choreographer.
I want to do the best I can in this
part so that I can be a good part of
this production. It's always someone other than you outside of you.
Am I doing It's right? What do I have to
(26:21):
do next? Now that I'm older. It's just a pleasure
to be here. This is who I am, this is
my expression. I offer it to you and hope that
you can get something.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Out of it.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Just look, just listen, just enjoy or not. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
The filmmaker Gabrie Christa saw one of those performances of
the five plus ensemble and she told me it struck her.
Why don't we see more older people on stage? Because
this is where the power is. This is performers at
peace and at home with their bodies. And she made
(27:13):
a beautiful short film about you called Sheila last year,
and it's such an ode to your form. Just to
see you sitting in a leotard and then standing up
and dancing. There's so much history in your body and
(27:35):
your movements. What is your relationship with your body at
eighty two and have you been at peace with the
aging process?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Yes, I believe I am. I still do exercise yoga, I.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
No longer do a bar no, And.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I'm very happy and appreciative that I was able to
do or I did for so long. It helped me
to know myself and it felled that creative need. When
we came together for the ensemble, I wasn't even nervous
about performing, whereas you know other time throughout my whole career,
(28:20):
I was a nervous type of person. But yeah, like
you say, more at peace and unfortunate that I managed
to get here, because I can imagine there are other
dancers and stuff who are very frustrated careers were cut
short or they had an injury that they had to
(28:41):
deal with. All Now I have to teach because I
can't dance. You know, you go through all of that,
and I'm good.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Sheila, You and the four other Swans started the one
hundred and fifty second Street Black Ballet Legacy Council in
twenty two because you were tired of your legacies being
forgotten by history. Since then, you've met every Tuesday afternoon
without fail. I've been lucky to sit in on several
of those meetings, and there was something so beautiful and
(29:15):
consistent about the way you women would come together. Last
year you lost Gail McKinney Griffith, one of the founding
members of the one hundred and fifty second Street Black
Beallet Legacy Council and a founding member of Dance Theater
of Harlem. I'm just wondering how comforting it is to
(29:36):
you to have been in such close communion with her
over the last few years.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Gail was always a light in our lives. Everyone will
say that to you. Let's just as you was. So
her passing is big that she's not here with us.
Latched onto the word, well, the meaning of sisterhood. That's
(30:07):
who we are. We're not just an alumni group coming
together for memoirs. We've known each other so long and
we got to know each other again.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Does it provide any comfort to know that she put
her story down on record?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yes, yes it does, because I want everyone to know her.
She was an angel. She was human, you know, ups
and downs, in and outs, but basically essence, she was
an angel.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, just using your wisdom and your wide lens, what
would you what would you say to young dancers who
had all of the ambition and the hunger starting their careers.
How would you counsel them to hold onto themselves like
(31:09):
you really did yourself.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
You have to try to know yourself, really try to
grow up inside, because putting a dance on the stage
has obstacles. You see, it's not just the creative spirit
(31:34):
and the creative source. See, that's in you. But then
you have to deal with business. You have to deal
with a production and that's not always a creative, spiritual environment.
So you have to create that and have that and
(31:56):
build that within yourself. No one doesn't want to see
you dance, that's their problem, you see. You have to
try to know yourself as best you can and be
able to deal with the obstacles and the criticisms and
(32:18):
the on equality of what happens in the theater. I mean,
it's worldwide and in some way you may make a change.
These young dancers now, they may make a big change
in the theater. This could be a revolution for them, evolution,
(32:38):
you see, to make that change because we see there
are more black dances that we get to see, and
you see how fabulous they are. See Alvan Elliot has
some of the to me, the greatest dancers in the world,
and that includes Russia, you.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Know, the French.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But we need to be used and it's coming because
nobody wants to put up with that foolishness anymore. I
think it's just now. It's still a problem. It's still
a problem, but don't let it stop you, because like
(33:19):
we just said, a change is coming. You're going to
be part of that change. So have faith in your
artistic abilities. You know that you've been gifted with it's
a gift.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Thank you, Sheila, Thank you so much for this conversation
and for all our conversations, and mostly thank you so
much for the example of how one can be an
artist in this world.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
And thank you Karen for for telling our stories.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
That was Sheila Rohan talking with Karen Bealby, the author
of The Swans of Harlem, which is available wherever books
and audio books are sold. And remember keep an eye
out for season three of The Turning and thanks for listening.
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