Playbill: Dance Theatre of Harlem Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary at New York City Center

For an April 11 article in Playbill, Djassi Dacosta Johnson celebrates the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 50th anniversary at New York City Center. Johnson highlights the company’s foundation of inclusion and awareness, calling it “the proliferation of classical ballet- artistically and socially advancing what ballet can mean to a public.”

Johnson praised Virginia Johnson, DTH’s director, writing, “She has provided a platform for female classical ballet choreographers through Women Who Move Us, the DTH program with a mission to cultivate the female choreographic voice in classical ballet. ‘There is much headway to be made,’ says Johnson. ‘The ballet world is so hierarchical and still so traditionally male dominant.'”

The company began with a strong advocate for a well-rounded, diverse, rooted-in-classical but thoroughly modern ballet, and 50 years later, this philosophy continues to allow DTH to thrive.

Read Johnson’s article here.