‘The Swans of Harlem,’ by Karen Valby

Key Facts

Credit...Jack Vartoogian/Front Row Photos Danyel Smith Danyel Smith is the author of “Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop,” the host of the podcast Black Girl Songbook and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.
Abarca’s family was so concerned by her erasure from dance history (and her apparent attendant depression) that they instigated the telling of this story.
If it were just a quest for cultural redress, the result might have been a dusty scroll of the Swans’ ballet bona fides.
And what is most remembered about a performance to Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings” is “the transcendent scene of 17 women onstage, swathed in the palest and pearliest of blues.”