‘Traditional ballet with a twist’: Dance Theatre of Harlem brings four-part show to Calgary​on February 7, 2025 at 1:31 pm

Like many before her, Lindsey Donnell first became enamoured with ballet by watching The Nutcracker.

It was on videotape. There was no professional ballet company in Midland, the Texas oil city she grew up in. She figures she was three or four at the time.

“I felt it was truly magical,” says Donnell. “I had never seen anyone be able to stand on the tips of their toes. Not only stand but to turn like that. I felt like it was everything opposite of what a normal human does. A normal human stands flat on their feet, straight forward. But the ballerina stands on the tips of their toes. Their tutu defies gravity. I felt like it was almost like a real-life princess. I think art transcends boundaries. For a kid, the music was captivating, the movement, everything. That etherealness was breathtaking to me. I didn’t realize everything that would be involved to reach that level. I just knew I wanted to do it.”

She was determined, despite the fact there were not a lot of ballet dancers who looked like her. She did have one role model to look up to. Lauren Anderson became one of the first Black performers to rise to principal dancer in a major company, which she did in 1990 as part of Houston Ballet. But being a Black ballerina was rare when Donnell was growing up. It still is.

“She was the only one that I saw,” Donnell says. “Even today, diversity – especially in the ballet world – is still a challenge. I think it’s still something we are working on, to make it more common. It’s important because art enriches lives. A lot of times, because ballet is a European tradition, a lot of the stories that are told – Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty – are princess stories. However, there are many different narratives that can be told through the art form of dance. African traditions can also be told through the art form of ballet, it doesn’t just have to be European.”

For the past 13 years, Donnell has been performing with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a company founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The company will be performing at the Jubilee Auditorium from Feb. 13 to 15 as part of Alberta Ballet’s season, offering a four-part show that highlights the company’s diversity.

The soundtracks to each show highlight the different tones the company will be offering in Calgary. The performance begins with a piece set to the Nyman String Quartet No. 2, a modern, neo-classical piece by British composer Michael Nyman. Take Me With You offers modern ballet set against the music of Radiohead. Pas de Dix follows, which was created by Georgian-American ballet choreographer George Balanchine from the New York City Ballet in 1955 with the music composed by Alexander Glazounov for the 1898 ballet Raymonda. The evening will end with Return, which mixes classical ballet and street dancing to the music of Aretha Franklin and James Brown. Both Nyman String Quartet No. 2 and Return are choreographed by Robert Garland, the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s artistic director.

“He is really amazing at doing traditional ballet but with a twist,” Donnell says. “A lot of the Black vernacular dance is not necessarily done in a studio or in a more formal way. A lot of Black vernacular dance is in the street and that kind of thing. Mr. Garland is a genius at combining the two traditions in such a palatable way, that makes ballet more fun, accessible, enjoyable and, I feel, relevant to today.”