
The American Negro Ballet, 1937. Source: Vintage Everyday.
One of the first black ballet dance companies, the American Negro Ballet, was started in 1937 by German choreographer Eugene Von Grona.
While dancing and directing ballets at Roxyโs Theatre in 1935, [Eugene] explored upper Manhattan, diving into nightclubs. He found their dancers all too light, too sophisticated. โI want them black, black, all Negro,โ said von Grona. โฆ Von Grona advertised, offering scholarships, and got hundreds of applications. He picked 20 of the blackest applicants โฆ ~ TIME Magazine, Nov. 29, 1937
โฆ and the rest is history.
For the debut performance of the American Negro Ballet, von Grona choreographed a medley of traditional ballet with jazz dance โagainst a similarly multi-faceted score that wandered from classics like Stravinsky to the modern sounds of Duke Ellingtonโ. Though the company went on to only last a year, it became the motivation for future inclusions of black dancers on ballet stages.

The American Negro Ballet, 1937. Source: Vintage Everyday.

The American Negro Ballet, 1937. Source: Vintage Everyday.

The American Negro Ballet, 1937. Source: Vintage Everyday.

Von Grona with the dancers. Source: Vintage Everyday.
UPDATE: In 1930, Katherine Dunham actually started a black ballet company, called Ballet Nรจgre that preceded Von Gronaโs American Negro Ballet. Ballet Nรจgre held its first and only performance in Chicago and disbanded in 1931. Dunham went on to eventually create the first African-American modern dance company, the Katherine Dunham Company, and โchange the face of modern danceโ in America.

Katherine Dunham. Source
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