More than 80 years ago, Doris Jones and Claire Haywood not only started a dance studio to offer top-notch training, they created a safe space for Black dancers to grow as artists and learn to navigate the world.
“Brown buns and brown skin and brown ballet shoes and tights- I loved ballet as a little girl and Jones-Haywood was where I saw myself reflected in the ballet world,” multi-hyphenate artist and theatre-maker ChelseaDee Harrison told The Informer.
Since 1941, Jones-Haywood Dance School has trained countless successful alumni including, three-time Tony winner Hinton Battle, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and Tony Award-winning performer Chita Rivera, and celebrated choreographer George Faison. With a long reputation of excellence, Jones-Haywood has been referred to as a “dance-feeder institution” for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Now an arts educator, Harrison said Jones-Haywood taught her far more than choreography.
“We had a place to learn about our bodies and to begin to appreciate the strength and power of our bodies,” she explained. “We were also perfecting a technique that wasn’t created with African bodies in mind. To learn the technique from Black ballet dancers — dancers who loved and advanced the art form — taught me how to see and feel beauty — even in spaces not intended for me.”
The artist said she still applies the lessons she learned at Jones-Haywood on and off the stage.
“It’s where I learned the meaning of grace under pressure. Ballet technique is hard on the body and difficult to execute but beauty is born from making the struggle look easy. That’s a lesson in living for me,” she said. “Life requires a great deal of poise under pressure and making it look easy is difficult but not impossible. Black ballerinas have been defying gravity for centuries.”