The Swans of Harlem with Karen Valby

Join us for an evening with Karen Valby to discuss her new book The Swans of Harlem, which tells the forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now. She’ll be joined by the Swans themselves: Lydia Abarca Mitchell, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Lynn Sells, and Karlya Shelton-Benjamin. This event will be held in the Decatur Library Auditorium (this is an updated venue). Registration requested. Order the book from Brave and Kind Books, our partner for this event, here.

For the Decatur Library Auditorium, please enter through the Ground Floor doors (bottom level of the parking deck). Doors will open at 6:30.

About the Author:

Karen Valby is a writer living in Austin, Texas. She’s the author of the books The Swans of Harlem and Welcome to Utopia. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, where she is a frequent contributor, as well as in The New York Times, O Magazine, Glamour, Fast Company, and EW, where she spent fifteen years writing about culture.

About the Swans:

Lydia Abarca Mitchell is a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she danced lead roles in Agon, Bugaku, Swan Lake, and many more. She has been featured on the covers of Dance and Essence and in print ads for Avon and Revlon. She performed in the movie The Wiz, and in Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ on Broadway. She has been the rehearsal director at Atlanta’s Ballethnic for over 20 years.

Sheila Rohan is a founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she was a soloist in Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla, Arthur Mitchell’s Rhythmetron, and more. She was soloist and ballet mistress for the Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theatre and toured China and Korea with the Myung Sook Chun Dance Company. She performed the role of Rosa Parks in Gordon Parks’s televised ballet Martin and, as a choreographer, assisted legends such as Louis Johnson and Walter Rutledge, among others. 

Marcia Lynn Sells began her life in the arts as a ballerina at Dance Theatre of Harlem and, before that, in the Cincinnati Ballet. In 2021, she became the first Chief Diversity Officer for the Metropolitan Opera. Previously, she held positions in the private and public sectors including Reuters America, the National Basketball Association, Columbia University School of Law, Harvard Law School, and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. 

Karlya Shelton-Benjamin began dancing at age 4 with the Colorado Concert Ballet (currently Colorado Ballet). At 17, she became the first person of color to represent the United States in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne ballet competition in Switzerland. She performed around the world with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, is a founding member of Peridance, has taught and coached at Oakland Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.

About the Book:

At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarça was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She was the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star, cast in The Wiz and on Broadway with Bob Fosse. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with her closest friends—founding members of the company, the Swans of Harlem, Gayle McKinney, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, and Karlya Shelton—for the Queen of England and Mick Jagger, with Josephine Baker, at the White House, and beyond.

Some forty years later, when Lydia’s granddaughter wanted to show her own ballet class evidence of her grandmother’s success, she found almost none, but for some yellowing photographs and programs in the family basement. Lydia had struggled for years to reckon with the erasure of her success, as all the Swans had. Still united as sisters in the present, they decided it was time to share their story themselves.

Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamor and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of their historic careers, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.

About the Moderator:

Nicki Salcedo is an Atlanta native with a degree in English and Creative Writing from Stanford University. She is the author of All Beautiful Things and three books of essays. Her writing career has led her to opportunities on stage, podcasts, and the radio. She teaches creative writing across the country including the writing certificate program at Emory University Continuing Education. She is a freelance writer, movie reviewer, and journalist. She is also a Mental Health First Aid Instructor and sought after speaker on the topics of wellbeing, mindfulness, self-care, creativity, DEI, and building company culture. Nicki lives in Atlanta with her family and cats. She loves connecting with writers, readers, people who care about each other.