April 30, 2024 • 47 mins
As we work on Season 3 of The Turning, we have something special for you: 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.
On the first episode, Karen Valby talks with former prima ballerina Lydia Abarca. You can buy The Swans of Harlem here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/716415/the-swans-of-harlem-by-karen-valby/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, it's Erica.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm happy to say that right now, we're working on
season three of The Turning. We think you'll love it.
It's another look into an insular community and we talk
with people who are rarely heard from. In the meantime,
we have something special for you. I want to tell
you about a new book. It's called The Swans of Harlem.
Five Black Ballerinas, fifty years of sisterhood and their reclamation
(00:28):
of a groundbreaking history. In the book, writer Karen Valbi
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. So I'm going
to turn it over to Karen for two episodes in
sort of a mini series for interviews with two dancers.
(00:50):
At the heart of her book, The Swans of Harlem Today,
Karen talks to former prima ballerina Lydia a Barca.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Long before Misty Copeland became a ballet sensation, there was
Lydia Ebarka. Lydia was the first black prima ballerina, the
first black ballerina in a company to appear on the
cover of Dance magazine and the first black woman to
dance Swan Lake. She became the face of Dance Theater
(01:22):
of Harlem alongside Arthur Mitchell, her whole life enduring a
complicated relationship with dance. Despite appearing in The Whiz and
in Bob Bossi's Dancing on Broadway, she would be forgotten
by history. Nobody deserves a third act like her. Hi Lydia, Hi,
Karen Lydia. I want to begin with you telling me
(01:47):
about where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I grew up in Harlem on on twenty fifth Street,
right off Broadway, in the Grant Housing projects with my
six siblings, five sisters, one brother, and just had a
really great childhood. We didn't want for anything. Of course,
we didn't have a lot, but we had what we
(02:11):
needed and we had our parents, loving parents. My mom
was just amazing. I mean, with so many kids, she
could find programs that we could participate in. We all
went to summer camp, sleep away Christmas parties. My dad
was a very hard working Puerto Rican man and he
(02:32):
didn't speak Spanish at home. That's my only regret. You know,
my mom knew Spanish, but once he got into the
house and married and he just wanted to speak English,
so we missed out on that opportunity. But he was
hard working, two jobs, strict, so he was a good
preparation for Arthur Mitchell.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Some kids just come out bound for the spotlight. You
were one of those kids that just knew you wanted
to be a star from a very young age. Can
you share what being a star meant to you.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I grew up with Motown, the Jackson Five, the Supremes,
the Temptations, Ginger Rogers and Fred Asteer. They were stars.
That's kind of what I aspired to. But my two
loves were reading and dancing. So if I wasn't in
a book, if music came on, I was just strolling
(03:33):
around the house. I just love music and I just
love to move. That was my life.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Can you tell us about that first time you actually performed.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
My first performance was in fourth grade. I went to
Catholic school. The nun who was my teacher choreographed Walts
of the Flowers. I had never heard music like that.
I loved it, and I don't know whatever the choreography was.
That was my first time learning choreography. I must have
been like a nut up there on stage because I
(04:10):
was in heaven. And after the performance, she told my mother,
you need to get her formal training. My mom and
I are looking at each other like what does that mean?
But Juilliard was right down the street on Broadway. There
used to be one hund twenty third and Cleremont, which
is walking distance, and she was able to get me
an audition. The audition was this pianist in this room
(04:35):
with chandeliers and mirrors, and he started playing and the
love of music just took over. I had no fear
and I did my big finale, which was a split.
Nobody in my family could do a split. And the
next thing I know, I got a full scholarship. So
(04:58):
I went every Saturday. I my first class. Yuck. I
was told to go over to the wall and hold
onto this wooden thang on the wall and bend my knees. Okay,
when are we going to dance? I did that for
four years every Saturday. I did plias and releve's and
(05:18):
advanced point shoes. That was fun after the first few
painful lessons. But there wasn't any dancing. It was technique
and it was it was not what I saw on TV.
I had never seen a.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Ballet in all of that time.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
You never know, unless you want to count Funny Girl
with Barbara Streisan. You know, she made fun of Swan
Lake the ballet. I did it because something inside of
me knew that it was correct. But after six years
you just kind of get like, well, I'm not having
(06:01):
fun with ballet. I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
During these pivotal training years, are you looking up to
any ballerinas? Are you being told you could be a ballerina?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No? No, that's the disconnect. You know, you go on
your toes. I was doing that, So am I a ballerina?
You know, nobody said, okay, this is the company, come
watch a rehearsal. You know, if you went by the
door and they were doing something, usually you were told,
you know, shoot away, you know, don't stand there. So
(06:40):
they probably assumed that I knew that I knew what
I was working towards. I did not.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
At what point, as a teenager do you decide I'm
not doing this anymore. I'm not going to spend my
weekends at the bar. I have dreams outside of this studio,
and the studio isn't getting me closer to them.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I quit the last two years of high school that
was my junior and senior year, and just concentrated on
trying to go to college. My parents were really excited
about me doing that. I got a partial scholarship to
Fordham University. But that summer I was working at a
bank to save up some money towards the tuition. And
(07:23):
one of my sisters was studying violin at the Harlem
School the Yards, and she says, Lydia, there's this black
guy there and he's doing something with ballet. You know.
I'm saying to myself, well, I never had a black
ballet teacher. Maybe he's going to make this really more
interesting relatable.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Help me please.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Six years of training, I needed to know was there
something that I was missing? Obviously, So when I went
it wasn't for classes. He was starting a company. He
wanted to see my feet. I knew I had nice feet.
I told him I had training, I had been on point,
I had stopped dancing two years ago. And he said
(08:03):
he'd pay me one hundred and fifty dollars if I
would quit my job at the bank and come be
in his company. And again I said, okay, Ballet Company.
I guess we're going to do Swan Lake. I don't know,
but I was so excited. He was so dynamic, So
I quit the bank and oh my goodness, oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Had you heard of Arthur Mitchell before?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So you put your leotard back on, You get yourself
down to this church basement where he's hosting these auditions.
What was it like to walk into a room with
other classically trained black dancers in it? Had you ever
conceived of a world like this before?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Absolutely not. And it didn't matter that it wasn't with
the chandeliers and the glass mirrors everywhere. There was just
such a feeling of camaraderie. Hearing the others talk about
how they had tried to get into these companies and
were rejected because of their skin color. It was a
(09:11):
total awakening for me. And just meeting other dancers who
loved ballet. You know what was I missing? What was
it about the ballet that you loved? But working with
Arthur showed me it was a wonderful world. Arthur Mitchell
took me to my first ballet performance, and that was
(09:34):
at New York City Ballet, which I had never heard of.
Them either. Wow, And he was so dynamic on stage.
He was doing a Midsummer Night's Dream I'll never forget,
which is you know, he's like a little I don't
want to say troublemaker. I'm not really sure the story
right now, but at one point he realized he's made
(09:55):
a mistake and he just kind of dropped his arms
and his facade and was so street and it was lovable,
and I said, oh my god, ballet doesn't have to
be this crazy, fiery stuff. And I got to see
the rest of the company do ballets. I saw what
a ballerina does a lead ballerina, Oh, unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So at this point your whole sense of what ballet
can be has completely changed from those narrow studios Saturday mornings. Yes,
does it start feeling, especially with the zeal mister Mitchell
was bringing to the mission all these years of ballet.
(10:42):
Maybe ballet is going to make.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Me a star. It was an avenue because I really
I thought maybe dancing wasn't it. But I guess all
the stars and the planets were aligned, and it just
started to make sense. And I was good at it,
and for him, I was a clean slate. I had
no preconceived ideas of what I should be doing or
(11:06):
how I should be acting. He had Clay with me
and he was molding me, and I had to learn
how to be a principal dancer. It was exciting. It
was something I'd come home talk to my sisters and
they're looking at me like, what was an arabesque? You know?
And the choreography was was I can't say fun at all,
(11:31):
but it was challenging and exciting and wow, at.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
What point do you realize, Wow, mister Mitchell, his focus
is on the whole company. He is making this, you know,
a united force that's going to shock the world. At
what point, though, do you realize I think I might
be his star here.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I'll be honest. I was so focused on doing what
he said on the technique, on the presence on stage.
I know I was getting the leads and almost you know,
all the balancing ballets anyway, but I really felt that
I deserved that, you know. And I'll be honest, I
(12:22):
have five sisters, and being around women, you're very conscious
of the possibility of jealousy. So whatever I was doing,
it was obviously because Arthur had me doing it, and
I was not going to go around saying that I'm
the one. I spent my time and energy proving that
(12:45):
I deserved it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
What was it like when mister Mitchell started saying, we're
going to be going around town. We need to be
meeting the muckety MUCKs for fun raising and you're going
to be my plus one. You're this girl from the
Grand Houses, You're still a teenager and suddenly he's taking
(13:11):
you all around town. Can you tell us about some
of those nights out with him?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
That was so fun? Gave me a chance to dress up.
I love dressing up. I didn't have any money to
buy like really expensive things, but I knew how to
look pretty. And he was so proud of me. You know,
this is my ballerina, and I knew it was important.
Money was important. He needed that money. This was his dream,
(13:41):
this was my dream, This was all of our dreams.
And it was just wonderful watching him talk, you know,
And it didn't matter what question they asked him, he
would always be able to turn the conversation around to
and yes, we need money to do this, and they say, oh,
look at that. This fundraising tactic were incredible. I mean,
(14:02):
I was happy, just watching him. I had nothing to
contribute to that conversation. And then oh, yes, thank you,
you know telling me how nice I dance. Oh, thank
you so much to know how am I doing?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Arthur.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I didn't want to mess up the fundraising.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You once told me there was one cocktail party that
sat poorly with you. Oh yeah, turned you off on
being Arthur Mitchell's plus one. Can you tell me about
the evening?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, I don't even remember whose party it was, but
they put some music on and they wanted me and
Arthur to dance, and I just, I'll be honest, I
felt like a little organ grinder monkey, you know, let's
see you dance, and that kind of dancing had nothing
(14:55):
to do with what we were doing. We were ballet,
you know, go down to the corner and watch somebody
dance like that. That's not what I do. I do
it at my kind of parties or you know, but
not when we're trying to raise money. So it, Yeah,
it didn't sit well with me. I really just went
through the motions, and of course Arthur was just you know,
(15:18):
Arthur and doing his thing. But that's the first time
I really felt like, if you want to see us perform,
buy a ticket and come to the City Center and
watch us do our thing. But this, I don't know.
Maybe I took it wrong, but I didn't like it.
And I think that's probably around the time that I
(15:41):
stopped going with him, or him not inviting me, it
was fine with me.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Did you feel often at these cocktail parties and fundraising
events would you and Arthur be the only two black
people in the room?
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Did you ever get a sense that a request like that,
that a room like that, that the burden of hustling
for money like that was hard on Arthur too?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Oh my god, I know it was. I know it
was to pull us out as if you know, this
is our special treat for everybody, let's see them.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, at the end of one of your evenings out.
I know this story is hard for you to talk
about because you tried to bury it from the moment
after it happened. Arthur escorted you back into your apartment
building and in the bright lobby right outside of the elevator,
(16:45):
he surprised you. Can you share what happened?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
What was that about? All right? It was just one
of those fun nights. It must have been one of
the plays that I did enjoy, and he kissed me
on my lips, and whoa, but it wasn't it wasn't passionate.
I'm pretty sure I kind of backed up a little bit,
like what what. But to my recollection, I take it
(17:15):
as him saying thank you. I didn't take it that
I love you. None of that. I really to me,
it would have been the same as if he gave
me a really good hug. I don't want to make
more out of it. It's just that it confused me
(17:35):
a little bit because we heard stories from him about
how balancing, you know, went out with all his ballerying
as his principles and then married them and then went
on to the next thing. I had too much respect
for the man. What we were doing was too important,
and I was not about to even entertain the thought
(17:59):
of that kind of relationship.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
He was my boss, and you all never spoke of
it again.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I have had conversations with people from the company who said, oh,
he shot his shot. He tried and it was rebuffed,
and he sort of gracefully moved on. You say it
was like a good hug, but then shortly after that
(18:32):
evening you do sort of tumble in to a fast
relationship with another dancer. In hindsight, you wonder if you
were putting some visible distance between you and mister Mitchell.
Can you say why you think it might have been
important for you to align with somebody else?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You know, I'll be honest, I didn't think of it
that way at the time, but Karen, when you started
interviewing us for the book and we started talking about it,
I was like, wait a minute, maybe maybe there's something
to that thought that subconsciously I was making sure that
everyone knew I didn't want that. I didn't want that doubt.
(19:19):
She's just you know, none of that, please, Oh my god, no.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
None of that.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
What innuendo, that innuendo that I was being treated specially
because of favors or something like that. And no, no, no,
no no. I was working too hard. This was too important.
He had totally convinced me we were world ambassadors and
pioneers and all that, and so I guess, looking back,
(19:46):
and you forcing me to look back at that during
the interviews for the book, I really started thinking about
how maybe others might have been looking at our relationship
and it was important to me to just let them
know I'm out here with you, guys. I'm doing the
same thing you are.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Talk to me about the rocket ship that was Dance
Theater of Harlem. Suddenly, in record time you all have
exploded onto the scene. When did you feel like he's
done it? We are listen to these audiences go nuts
(20:28):
for us. When did it start feeling like success?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I think is when we started doing our New York seasons.
Because up to then we had done a lot of
traveling by bus, ugh getting up in the morning demonstrations,
like at eight o'clock in the morning we had just
been on a bus for ten hours or something. We
were pretty much dancing for people that looked like us,
(20:55):
and so it was kind of expected. But when we
got to City sent you know, with the live orchestra
and the curtain going up and then the applause afterwards,
That's that's when it was validated for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, Are you starting to feel like I made it?
I've made my dreams come true? Was life offstage becoming
more glamorous?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Are you.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Rolling in money?
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Heck no no. And you know, but back then in
Parlem you could get a really nice apartment for three
point fifty a month, you know, I had one apartment,
had four bedrooms, a little kitchen, maid's room off the
kitchen with its own bathroom. I mean, they just don't
have that anymore. But I could never ever afford a
(21:51):
place by myself ever, And so that was okay. I've
got plenty of sisters that took turns rooming with me.
But the money never changed. I mean the money one
fifty went up to two fifty, you know, but I
don't even know how I was able to buy nice clothes,
(22:12):
you know, to make sure that we were presentable. But
you know, at one point, I was like, okay, when
when does this start kind of paying off, so that
you know, my parents can get out of the projects
or something that I could help somebody, just help my
(22:33):
one of my sisters, or brought my brother go to college.
It wasn't happening. And I know that any money that
we got, any extra money, went to the company. It
was too important for the company to survive, not me
to have more money.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That sounds hard to know that the mission of Dance
Theater of Harlem is so vital, and how do you
balance your own personal ambition and needs for yourself? Did
you feel like there was room for you to hold
(23:12):
on to your dreams.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I guess at the time, I wasn't real clear about
what did I want? You know, I was, I was
finally dancing, I was getting reviewsed I was. I was
doing everything I thought I was supposed to do to
be a star.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Wars.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Just wanted to have something to show for it. I
have nothing to show for any of that. I had
some pictures, newspaper articles. I wanted to reward my parents
for everything they did. I wanted to at least do
a down payment on a house. Come on, we lived
(23:55):
in the projects, my dad worked two jobs. They loved
us so much, and I just that was a focus
and it didn't happen, you know what I mean. So
my parents went and got a house on their own.
I never helped with that.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
You know what strikes me as so sad about this
Lydia and always has is, for all intents and purposes,
you were as big a star as a dancer can
dream of. So it's sad to think of you looking
(24:38):
back on this storied career with anything other than awe
and pride.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
And I do, but again, I just don't have anything
else to show for it. The memories are gone. You know,
there's no taps, there's no nothing, and hopefully it's.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It's in the book, Lydia. Yeah, your works are in
the book. And what you have done, you have reclaimed
your story. You just maybe don't believe it yet. You
have done this, you have corrected history, and now you
just have to internalize that correction. You were there. Do
(25:26):
you think your parents were so proud of your career
at Dance Theater of Harlem. Did your hard working father
ever make it to see you in the ballet?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Oh? My gosh, she came. He was working as a
janitor at Brooklyn College, and we did combat and I
die at the end, and my mom said that he
had tears in his eyes, and all he said was
very good mama.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You know afterwards, imagine seeing your oldest daughter up on
stage like that and the whole audience on their feet.
How proud they must have been. Yeah, you do decide
at a very pivotal time to take a real leap
(26:12):
of faith and to take a break from Dance Theater
of Harlem to be a part of a movie, and
not just any movie. Can you tell a little bit
about your decision to join the whiz.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Oh. Yeah. We were in Chicago and I had done
Tchaikovsky Pototor, a very vigorous ballet, and I sprained my
ankle doing it. Didn't realize it until I went to
put my points you on for the next ballet and
my foot was so swollen and I couldn't get on.
So I had to be off for about three weeks.
And in the meantime I heard some of the dancers saying,
(26:48):
you know, Lewis Johnson, who had set a ballet on us,
was doing this movie, and Gail McKinney was going to
be one of his skeleton crew, and so I got
his number from her and he said, oh absolutely. It
was every black dancer from the city, every black model,
(27:09):
top models, emon everyone was going to do this movie.
This was a once in a lifetime event. And so
I never got the disapproval from Arthur until he started
calling the eleven of us who left the Dumb Eleven.
There were so many of us that went to do
(27:30):
the movie that he didn't have enough dancers and he
wanted us to come back, and I still wasn't ready
to come back.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I was.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Not feeling that pressure of being perfect and being the
lead no, no, no no. And then I auditioned for
All that Jazz with Bob Fosse and I'll never forget.
They were like, I don't know how many hundreds of
(28:02):
dancers on the stage and the first thing Bob Pasi
always did was a ballet combination. M dah. He eliminated
so many dancers just from that first piece, and he
stopped the audition. He said, what is your name? I said, Lydia, Lydia.
(28:24):
Oh Barker, I said, okay. He had even called me
and wanted to know what he could do to make
me want to come do the movie. And I said, no,
it's just going to be a chorus job. And I
really want to go to Europe. You know, I might
be the next Josephine Baker. When I talk now, I said,
oh my god. I was so dense. But I made
(28:50):
the bad decision because Bubblin Brown Sugar was going to Europe.
So I did it for about four months. You know,
a lot of people didn't know it did jazz, and
I taught myself tapp to do that show and that
was with Cab calloway.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh my god, were you missing ballet during this time?
Were you missing the choreography. Were you missing the company?
Were you missing Arthur?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I needed the break, I really did. That particular employment
ended very badly. I listened to a co worker who said,
let's go to England and see the London casts, a
bubb mc brown sugar just calling sick. We're entitled the
(29:42):
Sick Days. And I did. But when we came back,
they had packed up our stuff and we were fired.
We had a lawsuitcase and we got our money back
because that was ridiculous. But it made me sit down
and think about, you know, where's my life gone? You know?
I have this man that was really really he had
(30:05):
my back, Arthur Mitchell, and so I went back to
the company and that's when he told me they were
going to be doing Swanlike.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And swan Lake for so many ballerinas is the pivotal,
the essential ballet, the krem de la creme of roles.
Did it feel like that to you?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
No? The only version I had ever seen was Valentine's
version the second act, and that's probably sacrilegious that a
ballerina has never I've never seen the whole thing. Okay,
I had two months to learn it and opening night,
Balanchine was there. He wanted the pace to be a
(30:49):
little quicker. Arthur wanted some we call it the zah,
you know, like XA, the energy, you know that dotted
and there was a sentence, you know. And so the
curtains get ready to go up, and I'm the wings
and someone came up and said, good luck Lydia, and
(31:11):
I just I just wanted to scream because I had
no idea what the heck I was? What kind of
bird was I gonna? I mean, it really didn't relate.
I could not relate. And it sounds so bad, but
I didn't grow up with this. I didn't I didn't
have this reverence for it. I didn't get it. So
(31:35):
you know, I got through it. The potted dur was
absolutely beautiful. The audience would not stop clapping after Ronald
and I separated and went in the wings, and we
just looked at each other across the stage and we're like,
what are we supposed to do? I don't think we
went back out, but they finally stopped clapping and we
(31:56):
finished the ballet. That was the first time I got,
you know, kind of if he reviews and I understood it.
I understood it. This is not Lydia. This is not
the culmination of the years and the sacrifices and the
hard work that I came to do this particular ballet
(32:16):
that is not important to me. And I had heard
rumors that we were going to do Giselle next. It's
so not me that I realized it was time. It
was just time to go. What Arthur was doing was
too important. And my little beef about the Classics and
(32:40):
the direction he was taking had nothing to do with
the goal of the company. And there were dancers who
did aspire to do the classics. I was just not
one of them. I was thirty years old, I was
making three hundred and fifty dollars a week. I was done.
So I remember that morning. I got up and I
(33:02):
was a little restaurant on the corner where i'd get
an egg sandwich or something, and I'm like, I came out.
I said, I'm gonna tell him, and I must have
walked from the traffic light pole to the door of
the restaurant. I don't know how many times, and if
I long lived in my building. Then he comes up.
He's an old vaudeville performer, and he said, what's the
matter with you? And I said, I'm gonna quit dance
(33:25):
theater today, and he said, good for you. We need
to see more of you. So that gave me the
little bit of push I needed to go. Arthur's yelling
at me, You're just lazy, you don't want to do this,
and you know, I just let him rant because I
(33:45):
had made up my mind. And so I'm gonna tell
you when I walked out that door, who the weight
that came off my shoulders? Get over?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You made me think when you said the weight that
came off my shoulders. I wonder if part of the
weight was not just the weight of Arthur's expectations for you,
but the weight of being an ambassador, the weight of
being this first black prima ballerina, as big of an
(34:27):
honor as it was. Was that all exhausting too?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It was exhausting, but I was proud. I was very
proud of what I had accomplished with the company, had accomplished.
I just wasn't willing to keep doing that. I'm trying
to be careful what I say here. It was time
for Lydia to go. What Arthur was doing was too important.
(34:56):
He had this mission to prove that the answer of color,
which you know, it's so silly that there were capable
of doing ballet. So if he felt the need to
do the classics like Giselle and Swan Lake, that was
his mission. I had contributed everything that I could and
(35:20):
it was time to go. I did not want anybody
to hear me complaining and then and in it. No,
I recognized it as my time.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
You do get this great shot at another Broadway production.
Bob Fosse casts you in Dancing. You finally get a
shot at the an ranking rule.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yeah. I was hired to do trombone solo Benny Goodman, sing, sing, sing,
But well, I wanted to do that trumpet solo so bad.
It just spoke to my heart, my soul. And so
when the role came up, I know I nailed it.
He said, okay, this is your solo, and he worked
(36:10):
with me and tailored it to me. And I have
to say I didn't know how to hold back. We
had been trained to give one hundred and ten percent
every performance, and that's what I did for eight shows
a week for six months, and I blew out my knee.
But I have no regrets that that's how I went out.
(36:30):
I loved doing it. Oh yeah, and all that ballet
training came in handy.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
By the way, did you know how bad the injury was?
Did you know? It was kind of a career ender.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
When I first had it looked at. I went to
the hospital for special surgery because my sister worked there
and she was able to get me in to see
orthopedist and he said it needed surgery, but he couldn't
do it right away. So I went to another doctor
who apparently did most of the surgeries if they were
(37:13):
needed for New York City ballet dancers. And the surgery,
I thought it would be something I could just jump
back really quickly. And no, And so I was still
having pain, and I went back and the second time
I was under I could hear him during the surgery
saying things like, well, what does she expect me to
(37:34):
do it this? Nie? She's too old anyway? Why doesn't
she just model? So I'm hearing this and I'm just
so not confrontational. I just you know, after the surgery,
I never went back. I did bag him to refer
me to physical therapy that was not even something he
(37:56):
offered me. And I did that for a while, and
I spent so much time trying to get my knee
back together. And again, I'm thirty.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
While you were rehabbing your knee, you're on crutches for
a summer, and you start spending each day with your grandmother,
watching TV with her, and you once described how she
said during a commercial break, oh, Lydia, how are you
going to get on without the applause? And what was
(38:28):
that like for you to stop being on stage, to
stop being the star who gets on course after encourse.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
You know, at that time, I really still thought I
would be able to get back on the stage. I
really did, so I didn't when she said that. In
my head, I'll get back to that. I'll get back
to that. But you know, as it went on and
I realized I was not again what am I supposed
(39:00):
to do? I trusted? I lived this fairy tale in
my head. But I was taking jazz classes at Luigi's
and there was a woman there and I noticed she
wasn't really taking the class. She was more talking to
Luigian between combinations. And she came up to me and
she said, are you Lydia Barker And I said yes.
(39:21):
She says, you have got to come teach at my school,
you have got to come to Queen's and teach my students.
And ah, there it was. I had never thought about teaching.
I was too busy trying to get back on that stage.
(39:42):
And that opened up a whole new focus for me. Teaching, yeah,
and sharing what I knew and not being mean like
Arthur and pretty much getting the same results.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
You know, it seems a truth about dancers is that
they're treated as disposable in this business. You all would
often say how Arthur would say, You're all replaceable. You know,
I got a dozen more dancers coming up. You can
lose your part at any time. You're replaceable. What in
(40:19):
hindsight would you tell young dancers so as to not
see themselves as replaceable?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
You know, what I really think dancers need to concentrate
on is their own worth. And I hate when I
hear of dancers who are striving to be in a
ballet company and the possibilities of them getting into the
(40:52):
company or being promoted in the company are very slim,
and so I feel strongly that you have have to
find a company that will nourish you, that will nurture you,
that will use you. And I don't know what it
is about. I don't know. These big companies that are
(41:14):
very slow to diversify, and that's their right. But Arthur
Mitchell had the right idea. If you won't take us,
we'll do our own. It's a short career. You got
to make a decision.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
You said how important you would think it is for
a young dancer to find herself in a company that
nurtures and nourishes her. Did Dance Theater of Harlem do
that for you?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Oh my gosh, yes, I told you I was clueless,
and I'm the rarity because everyone else that was there
had known what they were working towards. Oh, dance stead
of Harlem. And you could talk to Annie that especially
the founding members in the first and second generations that
(42:05):
got mister Mitchell's personal attention. Ooh, priceless, priceless. He could
tear you down, but he could just as easily build
you up, you know, not with praise, but with just
maybe a nod of approval. You're just knowing that you
know you did your best, and that's what he was
looking for.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
You know, you visited Arthur in his apartment shortly before
his death. Can you talk a little bit about what
inspired you to make the trip.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
I never bragged about what I did. I would mention it,
and I loved having proof of it. And my daughter's
the same way. Daniella. She was telling people her mom
was the first black ballerina dance theatre Harlem, and I
(42:58):
think she went to prove it one day and she
put in first black ballerina and the only thing that
kept coming up was Misty Copeland. Misty Copeland, Mom, I thought,
you said you were the first black prima ballerina. Well,
I was, well, where's your stuff? And so we made
(43:20):
that trip because she wanted us as a family to
go up to dance at her Harlem, try to get
some photos. And we went to the New York Public
Library and I showed them a film of combat, but
the quality was so bad. They were young, they didn't
stay focused long. Al my husband said, why don't you
(43:42):
call Arthur because we knew he lived near Lincoln Center.
And I called him. I don't know, and he said, well,
who's with you? I said, just my family, Okay, come by.
I couldn't believe. He said, to come by. It was wonderful.
It was wonderful. He let Al tape him. He was
(44:05):
so complimentary. He took out Lord Snowden's book and showed
how the picture with me and Jerome Robbins was so good,
and you know, he showed off his cheek muscles back
in the day. But that's why we were there. We really,
my kids, my family and Arthur. I just it just
(44:28):
gave me validation. After I left the company, I never
called him. I never made it a point to talk
to him again. To me, it was just an understanding that,
you know, it was time for me to leave. But
whenever in the summers, I would drive the kids up,
just me and the kids because Al had to work,
(44:48):
and we always stopped at Dance Theater and he, if
he was there, he'd be, oh, here's Lydia, come Lydia,
and he'd show me around and this is a new room,
and everybody, this is my first bot Lorena, Lydia Barker.
And it just felt so good to know that he
wasn't upset with me anymore.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
You know, Lydia, how does it feel today to reclaim
the fact that you were a prima ballerina? How does
it feel to put the fact of your achievement down
(45:29):
on record?
Speaker 3 (45:32):
It's time. I'm humble. But I know what I did,
and I know how hard it was to do it,
and I just want, you know, history to remember that.
But I do want people to remember I do m
that's vanity, I guess, but I do well.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I don't know if it's vanity, it's fact.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, we were drilled into humility. You know, you want
to be an artist, and so being shy and non confrontational,
I was quite willing to just assume that people would
remember me. You know, it's okay to talk about it
and brag about it and be remembered for it. You know,
(46:20):
Arthur was not on stage when that curtain went up.
It was us.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
You had an extraordinary first act in your life, Lydia,
and your second act was so meaningful in your struggle
to find peace and stability. But it's such a joy
to witness you in your third act now and to
see you in the spotlight, which is really where you've
always belonged.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Oh, thank you so much, Karen, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
That was Lydia Abarka and Karen Valby, the author of
The Swans of Harlem, which is available wherever books and
audio books are sold. If you like this interview, you're
in luck. There's another one coming up with former ballerina
Sheila Rohan. Keep an eye out for that, and thanks
for listening.
Hi, it's Erica.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm happy to say that right now, we're working on
season three of The Turning. We think you'll love it.
It's another look into an insular community and we talk
with people who are rarely heard from. In the meantime,
we have something special for you. I want to tell
you about a new book. It's called The Swans of Harlem.
Five Black Ballerinas, fifty years of sisterhood and their reclamation
(00:28):
of a groundbreaking history. In the book, writer Karen Valbi
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. So I'm going
to turn it over to Karen for two episodes in
sort of a mini series for interviews with two dancers.
(00:50):
At the heart of her book, The Swans of Harlem Today,
Karen talks to former prima ballerina Lydia a Barca.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Long before Misty Copeland became a ballet sensation, there was
Lydia Ebarka. Lydia was the first black prima ballerina, the
first black ballerina in a company to appear on the
cover of Dance magazine and the first black woman to
dance Swan Lake. She became the face of Dance Theater
(01:22):
of Harlem alongside Arthur Mitchell, her whole life enduring a
complicated relationship with dance. Despite appearing in The Whiz and
in Bob Bossi's Dancing on Broadway, she would be forgotten
by history. Nobody deserves a third act like her. Hi Lydia, Hi,
Karen Lydia. I want to begin with you telling me
(01:47):
about where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I grew up in Harlem on on twenty fifth Street,
right off Broadway, in the Grant Housing projects with my
six siblings, five sisters, one brother, and just had a
really great childhood. We didn't want for anything. Of course,
we didn't have a lot, but we had what we
(02:11):
needed and we had our parents, loving parents. My mom
was just amazing. I mean, with so many kids, she
could find programs that we could participate in. We all
went to summer camp, sleep away Christmas parties. My dad
was a very hard working Puerto Rican man and he
(02:32):
didn't speak Spanish at home. That's my only regret. You know,
my mom knew Spanish, but once he got into the
house and married and he just wanted to speak English,
so we missed out on that opportunity. But he was
hard working, two jobs, strict, so he was a good
preparation for Arthur Mitchell.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Some kids just come out bound for the spotlight. You
were one of those kids that just knew you wanted
to be a star from a very young age. Can
you share what being a star meant to you.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I grew up with Motown, the Jackson Five, the Supremes,
the Temptations, Ginger Rogers and Fred Asteer. They were stars.
That's kind of what I aspired to. But my two
loves were reading and dancing. So if I wasn't in
a book, if music came on, I was just strolling
(03:33):
around the house. I just love music and I just
love to move. That was my life.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Can you tell us about that first time you actually performed.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
My first performance was in fourth grade. I went to
Catholic school. The nun who was my teacher choreographed Walts
of the Flowers. I had never heard music like that.
I loved it, and I don't know whatever the choreography was.
That was my first time learning choreography. I must have
been like a nut up there on stage because I
(04:10):
was in heaven. And after the performance, she told my mother,
you need to get her formal training. My mom and
I are looking at each other like what does that mean?
But Juilliard was right down the street on Broadway. There
used to be one hund twenty third and Cleremont, which
is walking distance, and she was able to get me
an audition. The audition was this pianist in this room
(04:35):
with chandeliers and mirrors, and he started playing and the
love of music just took over. I had no fear
and I did my big finale, which was a split.
Nobody in my family could do a split. And the
next thing I know, I got a full scholarship. So
(04:58):
I went every Saturday. I my first class. Yuck. I
was told to go over to the wall and hold
onto this wooden thang on the wall and bend my knees. Okay,
when are we going to dance? I did that for
four years every Saturday. I did plias and releve's and
(05:18):
advanced point shoes. That was fun after the first few
painful lessons. But there wasn't any dancing. It was technique
and it was it was not what I saw on TV.
I had never seen a.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Ballet in all of that time.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
You never know, unless you want to count Funny Girl
with Barbara Streisan. You know, she made fun of Swan
Lake the ballet. I did it because something inside of
me knew that it was correct. But after six years
you just kind of get like, well, I'm not having
(06:01):
fun with ballet. I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
During these pivotal training years, are you looking up to
any ballerinas? Are you being told you could be a ballerina?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No? No, that's the disconnect. You know, you go on
your toes. I was doing that, So am I a ballerina?
You know, nobody said, okay, this is the company, come
watch a rehearsal. You know, if you went by the
door and they were doing something, usually you were told,
you know, shoot away, you know, don't stand there. So
(06:40):
they probably assumed that I knew that I knew what
I was working towards. I did not.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
At what point, as a teenager do you decide I'm
not doing this anymore. I'm not going to spend my
weekends at the bar. I have dreams outside of this studio,
and the studio isn't getting me closer to them.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I quit the last two years of high school that
was my junior and senior year, and just concentrated on
trying to go to college. My parents were really excited
about me doing that. I got a partial scholarship to
Fordham University. But that summer I was working at a
bank to save up some money towards the tuition. And
(07:23):
one of my sisters was studying violin at the Harlem
School the Yards, and she says, Lydia, there's this black
guy there and he's doing something with ballet. You know.
I'm saying to myself, well, I never had a black
ballet teacher. Maybe he's going to make this really more
interesting relatable.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Help me please.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Six years of training, I needed to know was there
something that I was missing? Obviously, So when I went
it wasn't for classes. He was starting a company. He
wanted to see my feet. I knew I had nice feet.
I told him I had training, I had been on point,
I had stopped dancing two years ago. And he said
(08:03):
he'd pay me one hundred and fifty dollars if I
would quit my job at the bank and come be
in his company. And again I said, okay, Ballet Company.
I guess we're going to do Swan Lake. I don't know,
but I was so excited. He was so dynamic, So
I quit the bank and oh my goodness, oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Had you heard of Arthur Mitchell before?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So you put your leotard back on, You get yourself
down to this church basement where he's hosting these auditions.
What was it like to walk into a room with
other classically trained black dancers in it? Had you ever
conceived of a world like this before?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Absolutely not. And it didn't matter that it wasn't with
the chandeliers and the glass mirrors everywhere. There was just
such a feeling of camaraderie. Hearing the others talk about
how they had tried to get into these companies and
were rejected because of their skin color. It was a
(09:11):
total awakening for me. And just meeting other dancers who
loved ballet. You know what was I missing? What was
it about the ballet that you loved? But working with
Arthur showed me it was a wonderful world. Arthur Mitchell
took me to my first ballet performance, and that was
(09:34):
at New York City Ballet, which I had never heard of.
Them either. Wow, And he was so dynamic on stage.
He was doing a Midsummer Night's Dream I'll never forget,
which is you know, he's like a little I don't
want to say troublemaker. I'm not really sure the story
right now, but at one point he realized he's made
(09:55):
a mistake and he just kind of dropped his arms
and his facade and was so street and it was lovable,
and I said, oh my god, ballet doesn't have to
be this crazy, fiery stuff. And I got to see
the rest of the company do ballets. I saw what
a ballerina does a lead ballerina, Oh, unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So at this point your whole sense of what ballet
can be has completely changed from those narrow studios Saturday mornings. Yes,
does it start feeling, especially with the zeal mister Mitchell
was bringing to the mission all these years of ballet.
(10:42):
Maybe ballet is going to make.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Me a star. It was an avenue because I really
I thought maybe dancing wasn't it. But I guess all
the stars and the planets were aligned, and it just
started to make sense. And I was good at it,
and for him, I was a clean slate. I had
no preconceived ideas of what I should be doing or
(11:06):
how I should be acting. He had Clay with me
and he was molding me, and I had to learn
how to be a principal dancer. It was exciting. It
was something I'd come home talk to my sisters and
they're looking at me like, what was an arabesque? You know?
And the choreography was was I can't say fun at all,
(11:31):
but it was challenging and exciting and wow, at.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
What point do you realize, Wow, mister Mitchell, his focus
is on the whole company. He is making this, you know,
a united force that's going to shock the world. At
what point, though, do you realize I think I might
be his star here.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I'll be honest. I was so focused on doing what
he said on the technique, on the presence on stage.
I know I was getting the leads and almost you know,
all the balancing ballets anyway, but I really felt that
I deserved that, you know. And I'll be honest, I
(12:22):
have five sisters, and being around women, you're very conscious
of the possibility of jealousy. So whatever I was doing,
it was obviously because Arthur had me doing it, and
I was not going to go around saying that I'm
the one. I spent my time and energy proving that
(12:45):
I deserved it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
What was it like when mister Mitchell started saying, we're
going to be going around town. We need to be
meeting the muckety MUCKs for fun raising and you're going
to be my plus one. You're this girl from the
Grand Houses, You're still a teenager and suddenly he's taking
(13:11):
you all around town. Can you tell us about some
of those nights out with him?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
That was so fun? Gave me a chance to dress up.
I love dressing up. I didn't have any money to
buy like really expensive things, but I knew how to
look pretty. And he was so proud of me. You know,
this is my ballerina, and I knew it was important.
Money was important. He needed that money. This was his dream,
(13:41):
this was my dream, This was all of our dreams.
And it was just wonderful watching him talk, you know,
And it didn't matter what question they asked him, he
would always be able to turn the conversation around to
and yes, we need money to do this, and they say, oh,
look at that. This fundraising tactic were incredible. I mean,
(14:02):
I was happy, just watching him. I had nothing to
contribute to that conversation. And then oh, yes, thank you,
you know telling me how nice I dance. Oh, thank
you so much to know how am I doing?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Arthur.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I didn't want to mess up the fundraising.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You once told me there was one cocktail party that
sat poorly with you. Oh yeah, turned you off on
being Arthur Mitchell's plus one. Can you tell me about
the evening?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, I don't even remember whose party it was, but
they put some music on and they wanted me and
Arthur to dance, and I just, I'll be honest, I
felt like a little organ grinder monkey, you know, let's
see you dance, and that kind of dancing had nothing
(14:55):
to do with what we were doing. We were ballet,
you know, go down to the corner and watch somebody
dance like that. That's not what I do. I do
it at my kind of parties or you know, but
not when we're trying to raise money. So it, Yeah,
it didn't sit well with me. I really just went
through the motions, and of course Arthur was just you know,
(15:18):
Arthur and doing his thing. But that's the first time
I really felt like, if you want to see us perform,
buy a ticket and come to the City Center and
watch us do our thing. But this, I don't know.
Maybe I took it wrong, but I didn't like it.
And I think that's probably around the time that I
(15:41):
stopped going with him, or him not inviting me, it
was fine with me.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Did you feel often at these cocktail parties and fundraising
events would you and Arthur be the only two black
people in the room?
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Did you ever get a sense that a request like that,
that a room like that, that the burden of hustling
for money like that was hard on Arthur too?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Oh my god, I know it was. I know it
was to pull us out as if you know, this
is our special treat for everybody, let's see them.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, at the end of one of your evenings out.
I know this story is hard for you to talk
about because you tried to bury it from the moment
after it happened. Arthur escorted you back into your apartment
building and in the bright lobby right outside of the elevator,
(16:45):
he surprised you. Can you share what happened?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
What was that about? All right? It was just one
of those fun nights. It must have been one of
the plays that I did enjoy, and he kissed me
on my lips, and whoa, but it wasn't it wasn't passionate.
I'm pretty sure I kind of backed up a little bit,
like what what. But to my recollection, I take it
(17:15):
as him saying thank you. I didn't take it that
I love you. None of that. I really to me,
it would have been the same as if he gave
me a really good hug. I don't want to make
more out of it. It's just that it confused me
(17:35):
a little bit because we heard stories from him about
how balancing, you know, went out with all his ballerying
as his principles and then married them and then went
on to the next thing. I had too much respect
for the man. What we were doing was too important,
and I was not about to even entertain the thought
(17:59):
of that kind of relationship.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
He was my boss, and you all never spoke of
it again.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I have had conversations with people from the company who said, oh,
he shot his shot. He tried and it was rebuffed,
and he sort of gracefully moved on. You say it
was like a good hug, but then shortly after that
(18:32):
evening you do sort of tumble in to a fast
relationship with another dancer. In hindsight, you wonder if you
were putting some visible distance between you and mister Mitchell.
Can you say why you think it might have been
important for you to align with somebody else?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You know, I'll be honest, I didn't think of it
that way at the time, but Karen, when you started
interviewing us for the book and we started talking about it,
I was like, wait a minute, maybe maybe there's something
to that thought that subconsciously I was making sure that
everyone knew I didn't want that. I didn't want that doubt.
(19:19):
She's just you know, none of that, please, Oh my god, no.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
None of that.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
What innuendo, that innuendo that I was being treated specially
because of favors or something like that. And no, no, no,
no no. I was working too hard. This was too important.
He had totally convinced me we were world ambassadors and
pioneers and all that, and so I guess, looking back,
(19:46):
and you forcing me to look back at that during
the interviews for the book, I really started thinking about
how maybe others might have been looking at our relationship
and it was important to me to just let them
know I'm out here with you, guys. I'm doing the
same thing you are.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Talk to me about the rocket ship that was Dance
Theater of Harlem. Suddenly, in record time you all have
exploded onto the scene. When did you feel like he's
done it? We are listen to these audiences go nuts
(20:28):
for us. When did it start feeling like success?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I think is when we started doing our New York seasons.
Because up to then we had done a lot of
traveling by bus, ugh getting up in the morning demonstrations,
like at eight o'clock in the morning we had just
been on a bus for ten hours or something. We
were pretty much dancing for people that looked like us,
(20:55):
and so it was kind of expected. But when we
got to City sent you know, with the live orchestra
and the curtain going up and then the applause afterwards,
That's that's when it was validated for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, Are you starting to feel like I made it?
I've made my dreams come true? Was life offstage becoming
more glamorous?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Are you.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Rolling in money?
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Heck no no. And you know, but back then in
Parlem you could get a really nice apartment for three
point fifty a month, you know, I had one apartment,
had four bedrooms, a little kitchen, maid's room off the
kitchen with its own bathroom. I mean, they just don't
have that anymore. But I could never ever afford a
(21:51):
place by myself ever, And so that was okay. I've
got plenty of sisters that took turns rooming with me.
But the money never changed. I mean the money one
fifty went up to two fifty, you know, but I
don't even know how I was able to buy nice clothes,
(22:12):
you know, to make sure that we were presentable. But
you know, at one point, I was like, okay, when
when does this start kind of paying off, so that
you know, my parents can get out of the projects
or something that I could help somebody, just help my
(22:33):
one of my sisters, or brought my brother go to college.
It wasn't happening. And I know that any money that
we got, any extra money, went to the company. It
was too important for the company to survive, not me
to have more money.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That sounds hard to know that the mission of Dance
Theater of Harlem is so vital, and how do you
balance your own personal ambition and needs for yourself? Did
you feel like there was room for you to hold
(23:12):
on to your dreams.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I guess at the time, I wasn't real clear about
what did I want? You know, I was, I was
finally dancing, I was getting reviewsed I was. I was
doing everything I thought I was supposed to do to
be a star.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Wars.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Just wanted to have something to show for it. I
have nothing to show for any of that. I had
some pictures, newspaper articles. I wanted to reward my parents
for everything they did. I wanted to at least do
a down payment on a house. Come on, we lived
(23:55):
in the projects, my dad worked two jobs. They loved
us so much, and I just that was a focus
and it didn't happen, you know what I mean. So
my parents went and got a house on their own.
I never helped with that.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
You know what strikes me as so sad about this
Lydia and always has is, for all intents and purposes,
you were as big a star as a dancer can
dream of. So it's sad to think of you looking
(24:38):
back on this storied career with anything other than awe
and pride.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
And I do, but again, I just don't have anything
else to show for it. The memories are gone. You know,
there's no taps, there's no nothing, and hopefully it's.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It's in the book, Lydia. Yeah, your works are in
the book. And what you have done, you have reclaimed
your story. You just maybe don't believe it yet. You
have done this, you have corrected history, and now you
just have to internalize that correction. You were there. Do
(25:26):
you think your parents were so proud of your career
at Dance Theater of Harlem. Did your hard working father
ever make it to see you in the ballet?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Oh? My gosh, she came. He was working as a
janitor at Brooklyn College, and we did combat and I
die at the end, and my mom said that he
had tears in his eyes, and all he said was
very good mama.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You know afterwards, imagine seeing your oldest daughter up on
stage like that and the whole audience on their feet.
How proud they must have been. Yeah, you do decide
at a very pivotal time to take a real leap
(26:12):
of faith and to take a break from Dance Theater
of Harlem to be a part of a movie, and
not just any movie. Can you tell a little bit
about your decision to join the whiz.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Oh. Yeah. We were in Chicago and I had done
Tchaikovsky Pototor, a very vigorous ballet, and I sprained my
ankle doing it. Didn't realize it until I went to
put my points you on for the next ballet and
my foot was so swollen and I couldn't get on.
So I had to be off for about three weeks.
And in the meantime I heard some of the dancers saying,
(26:48):
you know, Lewis Johnson, who had set a ballet on us,
was doing this movie, and Gail McKinney was going to
be one of his skeleton crew, and so I got
his number from her and he said, oh absolutely. It
was every black dancer from the city, every black model,
(27:09):
top models, emon everyone was going to do this movie.
This was a once in a lifetime event. And so
I never got the disapproval from Arthur until he started
calling the eleven of us who left the Dumb Eleven.
There were so many of us that went to do
(27:30):
the movie that he didn't have enough dancers and he
wanted us to come back, and I still wasn't ready
to come back.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I was.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Not feeling that pressure of being perfect and being the
lead no, no, no no. And then I auditioned for
All that Jazz with Bob Fosse and I'll never forget.
They were like, I don't know how many hundreds of
(28:02):
dancers on the stage and the first thing Bob Pasi
always did was a ballet combination. M dah. He eliminated
so many dancers just from that first piece, and he
stopped the audition. He said, what is your name? I said, Lydia, Lydia.
(28:24):
Oh Barker, I said, okay. He had even called me
and wanted to know what he could do to make
me want to come do the movie. And I said, no,
it's just going to be a chorus job. And I
really want to go to Europe. You know, I might
be the next Josephine Baker. When I talk now, I said,
oh my god. I was so dense. But I made
(28:50):
the bad decision because Bubblin Brown Sugar was going to Europe.
So I did it for about four months. You know,
a lot of people didn't know it did jazz, and
I taught myself tapp to do that show and that
was with Cab calloway.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh my god, were you missing ballet during this time?
Were you missing the choreography. Were you missing the company?
Were you missing Arthur?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I needed the break, I really did. That particular employment
ended very badly. I listened to a co worker who said,
let's go to England and see the London casts, a
bubb mc brown sugar just calling sick. We're entitled the
(29:42):
Sick Days. And I did. But when we came back,
they had packed up our stuff and we were fired.
We had a lawsuitcase and we got our money back
because that was ridiculous. But it made me sit down
and think about, you know, where's my life gone? You know?
I have this man that was really really he had
(30:05):
my back, Arthur Mitchell, and so I went back to
the company and that's when he told me they were
going to be doing Swanlike.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And swan Lake for so many ballerinas is the pivotal,
the essential ballet, the krem de la creme of roles.
Did it feel like that to you?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
No? The only version I had ever seen was Valentine's
version the second act, and that's probably sacrilegious that a
ballerina has never I've never seen the whole thing. Okay,
I had two months to learn it and opening night,
Balanchine was there. He wanted the pace to be a
(30:49):
little quicker. Arthur wanted some we call it the zah,
you know, like XA, the energy, you know that dotted
and there was a sentence, you know. And so the
curtains get ready to go up, and I'm the wings
and someone came up and said, good luck Lydia, and
(31:11):
I just I just wanted to scream because I had
no idea what the heck I was? What kind of
bird was I gonna? I mean, it really didn't relate.
I could not relate. And it sounds so bad, but
I didn't grow up with this. I didn't I didn't
have this reverence for it. I didn't get it. So
(31:35):
you know, I got through it. The potted dur was
absolutely beautiful. The audience would not stop clapping after Ronald
and I separated and went in the wings, and we
just looked at each other across the stage and we're like,
what are we supposed to do? I don't think we
went back out, but they finally stopped clapping and we
(31:56):
finished the ballet. That was the first time I got,
you know, kind of if he reviews and I understood it.
I understood it. This is not Lydia. This is not
the culmination of the years and the sacrifices and the
hard work that I came to do this particular ballet
(32:16):
that is not important to me. And I had heard
rumors that we were going to do Giselle next. It's
so not me that I realized it was time. It
was just time to go. What Arthur was doing was
too important. And my little beef about the Classics and
(32:40):
the direction he was taking had nothing to do with
the goal of the company. And there were dancers who
did aspire to do the classics. I was just not
one of them. I was thirty years old, I was
making three hundred and fifty dollars a week. I was done.
So I remember that morning. I got up and I
(33:02):
was a little restaurant on the corner where i'd get
an egg sandwich or something, and I'm like, I came out.
I said, I'm gonna tell him, and I must have
walked from the traffic light pole to the door of
the restaurant. I don't know how many times, and if
I long lived in my building. Then he comes up.
He's an old vaudeville performer, and he said, what's the
matter with you? And I said, I'm gonna quit dance
(33:25):
theater today, and he said, good for you. We need
to see more of you. So that gave me the
little bit of push I needed to go. Arthur's yelling
at me, You're just lazy, you don't want to do this,
and you know, I just let him rant because I
(33:45):
had made up my mind. And so I'm gonna tell
you when I walked out that door, who the weight
that came off my shoulders? Get over?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You made me think when you said the weight that
came off my shoulders. I wonder if part of the
weight was not just the weight of Arthur's expectations for you,
but the weight of being an ambassador, the weight of
being this first black prima ballerina, as big of an
(34:27):
honor as it was. Was that all exhausting too?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It was exhausting, but I was proud. I was very
proud of what I had accomplished with the company, had accomplished.
I just wasn't willing to keep doing that. I'm trying
to be careful what I say here. It was time
for Lydia to go. What Arthur was doing was too important.
(34:56):
He had this mission to prove that the answer of color,
which you know, it's so silly that there were capable
of doing ballet. So if he felt the need to
do the classics like Giselle and Swan Lake, that was
his mission. I had contributed everything that I could and
(35:20):
it was time to go. I did not want anybody
to hear me complaining and then and in it. No,
I recognized it as my time.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
You do get this great shot at another Broadway production.
Bob Fosse casts you in Dancing. You finally get a
shot at the an ranking rule.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yeah. I was hired to do trombone solo Benny Goodman, sing, sing, sing,
But well, I wanted to do that trumpet solo so bad.
It just spoke to my heart, my soul. And so
when the role came up, I know I nailed it.
He said, okay, this is your solo, and he worked
(36:10):
with me and tailored it to me. And I have
to say I didn't know how to hold back. We
had been trained to give one hundred and ten percent
every performance, and that's what I did for eight shows
a week for six months, and I blew out my knee.
But I have no regrets that that's how I went out.
(36:30):
I loved doing it. Oh yeah, and all that ballet
training came in handy.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
By the way, did you know how bad the injury was?
Did you know? It was kind of a career ender.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
When I first had it looked at. I went to
the hospital for special surgery because my sister worked there
and she was able to get me in to see
orthopedist and he said it needed surgery, but he couldn't
do it right away. So I went to another doctor
who apparently did most of the surgeries if they were
(37:13):
needed for New York City ballet dancers. And the surgery,
I thought it would be something I could just jump
back really quickly. And no, And so I was still
having pain, and I went back and the second time
I was under I could hear him during the surgery
saying things like, well, what does she expect me to
(37:34):
do it this? Nie? She's too old anyway? Why doesn't
she just model? So I'm hearing this and I'm just
so not confrontational. I just you know, after the surgery,
I never went back. I did bag him to refer
me to physical therapy that was not even something he
(37:56):
offered me. And I did that for a while, and
I spent so much time trying to get my knee
back together. And again, I'm thirty.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
While you were rehabbing your knee, you're on crutches for
a summer, and you start spending each day with your grandmother,
watching TV with her, and you once described how she
said during a commercial break, oh, Lydia, how are you
going to get on without the applause? And what was
(38:28):
that like for you to stop being on stage, to
stop being the star who gets on course after encourse.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
You know, at that time, I really still thought I
would be able to get back on the stage. I
really did, so I didn't when she said that. In
my head, I'll get back to that. I'll get back
to that. But you know, as it went on and
I realized I was not again what am I supposed
(39:00):
to do? I trusted? I lived this fairy tale in
my head. But I was taking jazz classes at Luigi's
and there was a woman there and I noticed she
wasn't really taking the class. She was more talking to
Luigian between combinations. And she came up to me and
she said, are you Lydia Barker And I said yes.
(39:21):
She says, you have got to come teach at my school,
you have got to come to Queen's and teach my students.
And ah, there it was. I had never thought about teaching.
I was too busy trying to get back on that stage.
(39:42):
And that opened up a whole new focus for me. Teaching, yeah,
and sharing what I knew and not being mean like
Arthur and pretty much getting the same results.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
You know, it seems a truth about dancers is that
they're treated as disposable in this business. You all would
often say how Arthur would say, You're all replaceable. You know,
I got a dozen more dancers coming up. You can
lose your part at any time. You're replaceable. What in
(40:19):
hindsight would you tell young dancers so as to not
see themselves as replaceable?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
You know, what I really think dancers need to concentrate
on is their own worth. And I hate when I
hear of dancers who are striving to be in a
ballet company and the possibilities of them getting into the
(40:52):
company or being promoted in the company are very slim,
and so I feel strongly that you have have to
find a company that will nourish you, that will nurture you,
that will use you. And I don't know what it
is about. I don't know. These big companies that are
(41:14):
very slow to diversify, and that's their right. But Arthur
Mitchell had the right idea. If you won't take us,
we'll do our own. It's a short career. You got
to make a decision.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
You said how important you would think it is for
a young dancer to find herself in a company that
nurtures and nourishes her. Did Dance Theater of Harlem do
that for you?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Oh my gosh, yes, I told you I was clueless,
and I'm the rarity because everyone else that was there
had known what they were working towards. Oh, dance stead
of Harlem. And you could talk to Annie that especially
the founding members in the first and second generations that
(42:05):
got mister Mitchell's personal attention. Ooh, priceless, priceless. He could
tear you down, but he could just as easily build
you up, you know, not with praise, but with just
maybe a nod of approval. You're just knowing that you
know you did your best, and that's what he was
looking for.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
You know, you visited Arthur in his apartment shortly before
his death. Can you talk a little bit about what
inspired you to make the trip.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
I never bragged about what I did. I would mention it,
and I loved having proof of it. And my daughter's
the same way. Daniella. She was telling people her mom
was the first black ballerina dance theatre Harlem, and I
(42:58):
think she went to prove it one day and she
put in first black ballerina and the only thing that
kept coming up was Misty Copeland. Misty Copeland, Mom, I thought,
you said you were the first black prima ballerina. Well,
I was, well, where's your stuff? And so we made
(43:20):
that trip because she wanted us as a family to
go up to dance at her Harlem, try to get
some photos. And we went to the New York Public
Library and I showed them a film of combat, but
the quality was so bad. They were young, they didn't
stay focused long. Al my husband said, why don't you
(43:42):
call Arthur because we knew he lived near Lincoln Center.
And I called him. I don't know, and he said, well,
who's with you? I said, just my family, Okay, come by.
I couldn't believe. He said, to come by. It was wonderful.
It was wonderful. He let Al tape him. He was
(44:05):
so complimentary. He took out Lord Snowden's book and showed
how the picture with me and Jerome Robbins was so good,
and you know, he showed off his cheek muscles back
in the day. But that's why we were there. We really,
my kids, my family and Arthur. I just it just
(44:28):
gave me validation. After I left the company, I never
called him. I never made it a point to talk
to him again. To me, it was just an understanding that,
you know, it was time for me to leave. But
whenever in the summers, I would drive the kids up,
just me and the kids because Al had to work,
(44:48):
and we always stopped at Dance Theater and he, if
he was there, he'd be, oh, here's Lydia, come Lydia,
and he'd show me around and this is a new room,
and everybody, this is my first bot Lorena, Lydia Barker.
And it just felt so good to know that he
wasn't upset with me anymore.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
You know, Lydia, how does it feel today to reclaim
the fact that you were a prima ballerina? How does
it feel to put the fact of your achievement down
(45:29):
on record?
Speaker 3 (45:32):
It's time. I'm humble. But I know what I did,
and I know how hard it was to do it,
and I just want, you know, history to remember that.
But I do want people to remember I do m
that's vanity, I guess, but I do well.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I don't know if it's vanity, it's fact.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, we were drilled into humility. You know, you want
to be an artist, and so being shy and non confrontational,
I was quite willing to just assume that people would
remember me. You know, it's okay to talk about it
and brag about it and be remembered for it. You know,
(46:20):
Arthur was not on stage when that curtain went up.
It was us.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
You had an extraordinary first act in your life, Lydia,
and your second act was so meaningful in your struggle
to find peace and stability. But it's such a joy
to witness you in your third act now and to
see you in the spotlight, which is really where you've
always belonged.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Oh, thank you so much, Karen, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
That was Lydia Abarka and Karen Valby, the author of
The Swans of Harlem, which is available wherever books and
audio books are sold. If you like this interview, you're
in luck. There's another one coming up with former ballerina
Sheila Rohan. Keep an eye out for that, and thanks
for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.