Joffrey Ballet's Linda Swayze

"We want to be able to grow as the community grows"

by Hannah Ross

Linda Swayze is the director of community engagement and a dance instructor at the Joffrey Ballet. “I've always enjoyed dancing. And I can't even remember the time when I saw ballet first. But I knew that I fell in love with ballet.”

For a time, Swayze danced at a school on the South Side. When her teacher knew she had taken her as far as she could, she recommended the Stone-Camryn studio downtown, which was known for turning out professional dancers. “But little Black girls didn't do ballet. They might have danced, but they didn't do ballet.”

So Swayze straddled two worlds. “Adjusting to the different cultural experiences was challenging because there weren’t a lot of Blacks in my classes. In fact, I was the only Black for a long time. I would be going to this white institution five days a week after school and loving it, but then going to an all-Black neighborhood after my classes, I got ribbed, very much so. My classmates and my friends, they couldn't understand. ‘Why are you taking these ballet classes? Why did you go down there?’ And so trying to navigate both of those worlds was quite interesting, especially being an adolescent and really not having anyone to mentor me. Stone-Camryn mentored me as far as my talent and technique was concerned. But the emotional side of it, I really didn't have anybody to mentor me in that way. So I was trying to find my way.”

As Swayze continued her education at Stone-Camryn and her passion for dance grew, she started looking to the future for a career in dance. “Walter Camryn and Bentley Stone knew that, although I didn't know at that time, they knew that there was not really going to be a place for me in a white ballet company.”

However, Camryn and Stone had a connection with Dance Theater of Harlem co-founder Arthur Mitchell who, at the time, was noted for innovating the dyeing of tights to match dancers’ skin tones. “So here I go, this little Black girl going with a letter from Walter Cameron and Bentley Stone to go have an audition and I was just awestruck at the time, because I never really saw myself in a company until that point. And then that evening, I had tickets to go see them perform and that solidified it for me. When I sat in that seat at the Auditorium Theater, and I saw Dance Theater of Harlem do “Four Temperaments”—that was the opening ballet that they did—and immediately I knew that that was what I wanted to do.” Swayze had always worn pink tights, but Dance Theater of Harlem showed her something new. “I think that was one of the things that subconsciously seeing that just kind of pivoted for me that the brown tights in the brown pointe shoes made sense.”

Swayze danced with Dance Theater of Harlem for 15 years, traveling to London, Spain, Brazil, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Italy, France. She participated in the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics. “At Dance Theatre of Harlem, it's 52 weeks in the season, and we had 45 weeks of guaranteed work. So I didn't know at the time, but we were making history.”

Of course, things rarely always go exactly as planned during a performance. And Swayze’s time with Dance Theater of Harlem was no different. They were performing George Balanchine’s “Allegro Brillante,” which Balanchine described as all of classical ballet boiled down to 13 minutes. A dancer was injured and Swayze went in as her understudy – except that the injured dancer was on the other side of the stage, doing the opposite set of movements to what Swayze had learned. “That was traumatic, yeah, but I made it through. I had a great partner and they kind of talked me through it.”

After 15 years, Swayze left the stage and started a family. She worked in the paper industry and hated the confinement of being behind a computer all day after being in such a creative profession for so many years.

“I met up with a former dancer just by happenstance. I was going—I'll never forget this—I was going up the CTA Red Line escalator to the street level to State Street and Pierre Lockett was walking down State Street and we locked eyes.” Lockett had transitioned from Dance Theatre of Harlem to Joffrey, which became her foot in the door. He invited her to teach classes and she loved it, so he hired her as a teaching artist. “And I've been at Joffrey ever since because I love working in the community. And I know how impactive dance can be, not only dance, but all the arts.” Lockett has since moved on from Joffrey and started his own school called Forward Momentum Chicago.

Linda Swayze in her youth.

courtesy

“What I really enjoy about teaching is the creative process, because there's so much that you can learn in the teaching environment. I would like to be the kind of teacher that Walter Stone and Bentley Camryn were for me. Because they were two teachers who were white that advocated for me, and had they not advocated for me and treated me no differently from any other student, then I don't think I would have had that access.

“One thing I do have to say, is that, in the environment with Arthur Mitchell, I did learn some things. You can get more from people when you treat them well. In the environment and time that Arthur Mitchell grew up in, he didn't really have a voice, being a Black dancer in the New York City Ballet, principal dancer. The way he had to use his voice was through his dancing. So fast forward, now. Students have a voice. Now on this side of teaching, I see there's a better way to get the best out of students, and to be the kind of teacher that brings out the best in students. Because a teacher can make a student or break a student. And I've seen and been in environments where teachers broke students, and I've had things said to me that would have broken my spirit, had I not had somebody to say, ‘yes, you can do it.’

“So I want to be the teacher that says ‘yes, you can do it.’ I want to be the kind of teacher that is an advocate for that student. That motivates me, when I'm in front of a classroom, that somebody who might be struggling, because I was the one who always had to prove myself. I know what it's like. Even when I was at Dance Theater, I was never the first cast. I was always the second cast. I always had to go the extra mile to prove myself. And so I see that now in students who might have the passion, but maybe they need the extra help, they need the extra push. The one who might not be the best turner, or they might not be the person who gets their legs up. But they have musicality, they have a passion, they know how to bring the magic. And so I want to be that person for those students, because they're out there.”

As Swayze transitioned into the role of director of community engagement—the role previously held by Lockett—and the Joffrey’s outreach programs grew, she found less and less time to teach. “I'm finding now that I have to pull back from the teaching aspect. But I do love the teaching, and I always want to teach, I always want to have at least one school that I'm teaching.”

Joffrey Tower Bridge program

Joffrey photo

Her unique position as an administrator with professional dance experience allows her to reach students who’ve come from similar backgrounds and introduce them to the possibilities of the arts and dance. “When I was growing up, you had one of two choices. You had either to be a concert dancer, or you can be commercial. But now, there's so many opportunities as far as dance is concerned. Now you could do concert dancing, you do commercial work, you could work with graphic artists, video, you can do so many things that dancers couldn’t do back then that you can do now as a person of color. And I go into these schools, I want to be able to share with them, that you can make a living, you don't have to be the starving artist anymore. So I want to be able to be an advocate for those students who have creative ideas and to show them a pathway that they can actually have a career in the arts.

“Because a lot of our programs are in underserved areas, I want to broaden the vision as far as our Black children and Brown children are concerned, that they can be more than just a rapper, a basketball player, or a hairstylist. I'm not knocking any of those things. Those things are great. But also, guys, you can pursue science or be a doctor or a lawyer, and have a creative side, too. I don't want them to be just one-dimensional. As a person of color, and a person who loves the arts, I want to show them that there are other avenues that you can go and not be afraid to explore those avenues. Whether they choose it or not, is irrelevant. But if they can get exposure to it, I think that will increase their likelihood to even expand it. Because vision is so very important. Being able to see it and have a pathway. That's one of the things that I really want to do here at Joffrey. It's to give the students a pathway.”

One way Joffrey extends the pathway to students is through its Joffrey Tower programs. For the programs at Joffrey Tower, “Students are chosen to participate in inschool and community programs based on their demonstration of excellent attendance, behavior, and a passion for dance,” according to the Joffrey website. The programs are free and allow participants to use the dance facilities, attire and costumes as they gain a deeper understanding of dance and grow confidence through performance. The Tower offers many different programs for students of all ages and at varying intensities. These programs are designed as a springboard for students to find passion in art. For example, at the end of the Summer Intensive course, a teacher from the Joffrey Academy evaluates the students and offers 10 a full scholarship to study at the Academy. Currently, the Academy has 44 students on full scholarships from the community engagement programs. “I'm really proud of that, because not only does it bring in students that will get the structure of ballet, it also brings more diversity into the Joffrey Tower.”

Ultimately, Swayze’s goal with community engagement is to learn how the Joffrey can better serve the community. “The whole idea is, of course, to give the students and schools more exposure to dance, and to also hopefully have schools know about our programs and how we can serve them, because I recognize that we are an arts organization. But that's not the only thing. We want to be able to come in and serve the school. What is the school's need? We don't want to be the type of organization that says, ‘Okay, we know how to do arts, and you are going to learn these specific things.’ No, we want to come in and say, ‘These are things that we can offer, but how can we serve you? How can we serve your community?’ And we want to be able to grow as the community grows.”