{"id":8692,"date":"2021-01-08T19:57:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T19:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=8692"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:26","slug":"bernice-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/01\/08\/bernice-willis\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernice Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernice Johnson (n\u00e9e Willis)<\/h2>\n

Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre<\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Bernice Johnson, photo via The Edge School of the Arts<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bernice Willis was born in 1911 and trained at the Grace Giles Dancing School. As a member of the Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre, Willis was in the original 1940 cast of Agnes de Mille\u2019s Black Ritual<\/em>. In addition to performing at the Apollo Theatre and the Cotton Club in the ’30s, Willis was also a part of the original Broadway cast of Swingin\u2019 the Dream<\/em> (1939).<\/p>\n

Willis ran the Bernice Johnson Cultural Arts Center in Queens, New York for almost 50 years. Alumni of the school include dancer and choreographer Camille A. Brown, Roger C. Jeffrey (companies of Lar Lubovitch, Twyla Tharp, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project), and Michael Peters (Tony- and Emmy-winning choreographer).<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black Ritual (Obeah), American Ballet Theatre<\/a>
\nBernice Willis, Playbill<\/a>
\nRoger C. Jeffrey, Interview En L’Air<\/a>Illuminating the Invisible: An Interview with Dancer\/Choreographer Camille A. Brown, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society<\/a>
\nMichael Peters, Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernice Johnson (n\u00e9e Willis) Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre Bernice Willis was born in 1911 and trained at the Grace Giles Dancing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8692"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11196,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8692\/revisions\/11196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}