\n<\/p>\n
When Gayle McKinney-Griffith was an aspiring ballerina auditioning for Juilliard in the late 1960s, her excitement was tempered by a daunting realization.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you walk into a room and you\u2019re the only Black person there,\u201d she later said, \u201cyou right away develop this persona that is protective but also standing strong. You\u2019re used to thinking two things at once: \u2018Yes, I\u2019m the only Black person here,\u2019 and \u2018Yes, let\u2019s do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That attitude not only helped her gain admittance to that elite arts institution; it also carried her through a nine-year career as a founding member of Dance Theater of Harlem<\/a>, the groundbreaking New York troupe that provided overdue opportunities and international acclaim to Black ballet performers.<\/p>\n As was the case with many dancers with the company in the early years, Ms. McKinney-Griffith\u2019s accomplishments faded over time, and her death on Oct. 11 was not widely reported. She died of cancer at 74 at her home in Quaker Hill, Conn., her daughter, Khadija T. Griffith, said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. McKinney-Griffith\u2019s stay at Juilliard turned out to be brief. She left the school in 1968 to join Arthur Mitchell<\/a>, the first African American principal dancer at New York City Ballet and a global star, to join the daring new troupe he was starting with his former instructor, the ballet master Karel Shook<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ms. McKinney-Griffith served not only as a principal dancer at Dance Theater of Harlem but also as the company\u2019s first ballet mistress. In that position, now known as rehearsal director, she was Mr. Mitchell\u2019s top lieutenant, responsible for running rehearsals, coaching dancers on choreography, helping with casting and other tasks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Her Juilliard training proved invaluable.<\/p>\n \u201cIn those early days, Arthur Mitchell needed really well-trained dancers,\u201d Virginia Johnson, a founding member of the company, said in an interview. \u201cAnd she was that dancer. She had the technique and line to step into George Balanchine\u2019s \u2018Concerto Barocco\u2019 with no question.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Johnson added: \u201cHer dancing had a transcendent quality. She was musical and meticulous the way classical ballet requires.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. McKinney-Griffith toured the country and the world and performed for countless luminaries, including Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother<\/a>.<\/p>\n But her legacy would not last \u2014 a point made clear in the book \u201cThe Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History,\u201d by Karen Valby, which was published last month.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Swans of Harlem\u201d recounts the triumphs of Ms. McKinney-Griffith and her Dance Theater of Harlem colleagues Lydia Abarca-Mitchell, Sheila Rohan, Karlya Shelton-Benjamin and Marcia Sells. It also recounts their disappointments, including being \u201crobbed of laurels upon which they might now be resting,\u201d as Danyel Smith wrote<\/a> in a recent review in The New York Times, by being consigned to relative obscurity after their years onstage.<\/p>\n As Ms. Johnson put it, \u201cWe were like celebrities, but when the company closed, it was as if Dance Theater of Harlem ceased to exist, even in history.\u201d (Dance Theater of Harlem went on hiatus in 2004 because of financial challenges and reopened in 2012.)<\/p>\n In 2015, when Misty Copeland became the first Black principal dancer<\/a> at American Ballet Theater, the news media often portrayed her as if she were the first star Black ballerina, Ms. Johnson said. \u201cPeople took that to heart, as if there had been no Lydia Abarca, no Gail McKinney; as if all the people who danced with us and Mitchell for 20 or 30 years had not existed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gayle Dunkin McKinney was born on Aug. 26, 1949, in Harlem, the daughter of Harold McKinney, a draftsman, and Millicent (Herndon) McKinney, a supervisor of telephone operators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When Gayle was 5, she and the family moved to a Colonial house on several acres in Quaker Hill, in eastern Connecticut north of New London, when her father took a job at the submarine manufacturing company Electric Boat.<\/p>\n She started taking ballet lessons at Carnegie Hall when she was 3, and when she was about 10 she was performing the \u201cFour Swans\u201d variation in \u201cSwan Lake,\u201d according to Ms. Valby.<\/p>\n She furthered her training in the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College in New London. She was accepted at Juilliard after graduating from nearby Waterford High School in 1967.<\/p>\n Despite the prestige of being admitted to the Manhattan school, all was not easy there. As Ms. Valby wrote, Juilliard initially steered Ms. McKinney-Griffith toward the modern dance program even though she had a lengthy ballet r\u00e9sum\u00e9. School officials told her in private, she said, that they believed it was the best direction for her, since she would never find a spot with a professional ballet company because of her race.<\/p>\n Distraught, she began to wonder why she was even attending the school. Little wonder that when she heard that Mr. Mitchell was starting a company, she was thrilled to have a chance to join.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She wangled an audition, and, after she demonstrated her pirouettes to Mr. Mitchell, he handed her a note that read: \u201cGo learn this dance. We\u2019re rehearsing the first movement of \u2018Tones\u2019 tomorrow.\u201d (\u201cTones\u201d was a new ballet by the company.)<\/p>\n Ms. McKinney-Griffith remained with Dance Theater of Harlem until 1977, when she was hired by the choreographer Louis Johnson<\/a> to coach the dancers \u2014 including Diana Ross, Nipsey Russell and Michael Jackson \u2014 for the elaborately choreographed numbers in Sidney Lumet\u2019s 1978 film version of the Broadway hit \u201cThe Wiz,\u201d<\/a> an exuberant Black retelling of \u201cThe Wizard of Oz.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike you had to teach Michael anything,\u201d she was quoted as saying in Ms. Valby\u2019s book. \u201cHe knew those steps yesterday! I felt so stupid just doing these little \u2018Ease on down, ease on down\u2019 moves. How embarrassing!\u201d<\/p>\n In 1979, she accepted an invitation to perform in a production of the musical \u201cShow Boat\u201d in Berlin. She remained in Berlin for the bulk of three decades, teaching dance in several German cities as well as in Austria, Switzerland and Italy. In the 1990s, she joined the faculty of Indiana University South Bend. She taught there for three years and helped create a dance department.<\/p>\n In addition to her daughter, Ms. McKinney-Griffith is survived by a son, Don Griffith II, and a grandson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She continued to choreograph and dance through the 1990s, and she never lost the thrill of the opening moments before an audience. As she recalled in an interview with Ms. Valby, she would knock on the stage three times for luck before each performance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like there\u2019s an energy curtain,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then you break through. It\u2019s so powerful, because that\u2019s when you break from your stress. No more training. No more pressure. You show your gift.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n