Leaps of Faith: Ballerina rises from Mexico City’s stages

Elena Carter Richardson was a ballet dancer and instructor who was one of the most recognizable figures in the Pacific Northwest dance community for a quarter century.

Elena was born in Mexico City in 1948 to an African American father, James P. Carter, and a Mexican mother, Catalina Romero. Carter showed a talent for dance at an early age and was enrolled in Mexico’s premier dance school, the Academia de Ballet de Cayoacan, where she studied traditional ballet.

She rose to prominence in Mexico, and became a principal dancer with Mexico’s National Company, Compania Nacional de Danza, and with the private company Ballet Classico 70. Those roles propelled her to touring opportunities around the globe, including the Royal New Zealand Ballet. In 1976, Carter joined the legendary Black Ballet Theatre, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York City.

With Dance Theatre of Harlem, Carter toured the world – from London to Israel to Japan. She stepped away from dance after she became pregnant with her daughter, but returned in 1982. That April, the Dance Theatre of Harlem made its only second-ever visit to Portland, where they gave four sold-out performances of Frankie and Johnny and A Streetcar Named Desire at the Civic Auditorium. Carter was one of only 14 female dancers in these performances.

In 1983, Carter moved to Portland with her daughter and husband, fellow Dance Theatre of Harlem performer Joe Wyatt. Both joined the staff of Jefferson High School’s Performing Arts Program. She would hold this position for nearly 20 years, teaching dance to hundreds of Portland students. Carter also continued to perform, becoming the principal dancer of the Pacific Ballet Theatre and the Oregon Ballet Theatre.

In 1990, Carter married Dean Richardson, a professor of law at Willamette University. As her dancing career reached its twilight, Carter focused more on dance instruction.

In the early 1990s, Carter became an instructor at the school of the Oregon Ballet Theatre. In addition to her work at Jefferson, Carter taught dance at the Vancouver School of Performing Arts and Pacific Artists Dance Center, and founded the dance program at Da Vinci Arts Middle School.

In 2000, Carter was diagnosed with cancer and passed away from the disease in 2006. Arthur Mitchell, founder and leader of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, remembered Carter by saying “She was a real inspiration to me and to the students in the school, who had never seen a real ballerina with brown skin like her.“ Memorial scholarships in honor of Elena Carter were created at the Oregon Ballet Theatre and Portland’s Polaris Dance Theatre. Her daughter, Jessica Alejandra Wyatt, also became a professional ballet dancer and performed with Ballet Hispanico.