The Swans of Harlem | Part One
The Turning - Seasons 1, 2 & 3
iHeartPodcasts and Rococo Punch
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Erica. I'm happy to say that right now we're working on season 3 of the turning. |
| 0:11.2 | We think you'll love it. It's another look into an insular |
| 0:14.3 | community and we talk with people who are rarely heard from. In the meantime we |
| 0:19.2 | have something special for you. I want to tell you about a new book. It's called The Swans of Harlem, Five Black |
| 0:25.3 | Balarinas, 50 Years of Sisterhood, and their reclamation of a groundbreaking history. |
| 0:29.8 | In the book, writer Karen Valby records the largely forgotten stories of five black ballerinas who changed the art form. |
| 0:37.1 | Their stories are surprising and vivid and poignant and totally worth your time if you enjoyed our most recent season of the turning. |
| 0:45.2 | So I'm going to turn it over to Karen for two episodes and sort of a mini series for interviews |
| 0:49.7 | with two dancers at the heart of her book, The Swans of Harlem. |
| 0:53.0 | Today, Karen talks to former Prima Balarina Lydia Abarka. |
| 0:57.0 | Long before a Misty Copeland became a ballet sensation, there was Lydia Abarka. |
| 1:07.0 | Lydia was the first black Prima Balarina, the first black ballerina in a company to appear on the cover of Dance magazine |
| 1:17.2 | and the first black woman to dance Swan Lake. She became the face of Dance Theater of Harlem alongside Arthur Mitchell. |
| 1:25.0 | Her whole life enduring a complicated relationship with dance. |
| 1:29.0 | Despite appearing in the whiz and in Bob Fosy's Danson on Broadway, she would be forgotten by history. |
| 1:37.0 | Nobody deserves a third act like her. |
| 1:40.0 | Hi Lydia. |
| 1:42.0 | Hi Karen. |
| 1:43.0 | Lydia, I want to begin with you telling me about where you grew up. |
| 1:48.0 | I grew up in Harlem on 25th Street, right off Broadway, in the Harlem on 25th 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 needed and we had our parents loving parents. My mom was just amazing. |
| 2:18.9 | I mean with so many kids she could find programs that we could participate in. |
| 2:22.8 | We all went to summer camp, sleep away, Christmas parties. |
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