DTH brings a dramatic revival to the State Theater.

NEW YORK City-Dance Theatre of Harlem, the all-American ballet company founded by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook in 1969, is primed to celebrate its first quarter-century of accomplishment with a season at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, March 11-27. The twenty-fifth-anniversary season will feature the revival of Valerie Bettis's dramatic Streetcar Named Desire, starring company prima ballerina Virginia Johnson and Lowell Smith. The season also includes the revival of Domy Reiter-Soffer's Equus, The Ballet, and Etosha, choreographed by Ron Cunningham, artistic director of Sacramento Ballet.

Set to the Harp Concerto, Op. 25, of Alberto Ginastera, Etosha will appear on the same program with Glen Tetley's Dialogues and Billy Wilson's Ginastera; the three works comprising an all-Ginastera evening. Cunningham's ballet evokes the exotic fauna of Africa's Etosha National Park.

One of the season's greatest treats will be the opportunity to see Johnson re-create her role of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar, a ballet originally made for the company of Mia Slavenska and Frederic Franklin in 1952. Bettis taught Johnson the part when she staged Streetcar for DTH in 1982, and Johnson's Blanche has been featured on television's "Dance in America" series. This season, Johnson says, her interpretation will be different because Bettis, who died the same year as the DTH revival, is no longer around to coach her and because the passing years have given her a new perspective on the role. "I'm closer to the age that Blanche was in the play," the ballerina says. "Now I understand the reality of having something to look back on--regrets and beautiful memories." Johnson also enjoys the coherent dramatic structure of Streetcar. The ballet permits her to develop a rich characterization, building to a climax as Blanche tips over into madness. "The entire work is about her slip into insanity," Johnson comments. "Every moment is an illumination of that descent."

An artist of rare sensitivity, whose skill as an actress has won her international acclaim, Johnson also values her part in Ginastera, which she compares to the role of Blanche. "i love the solo in Ginastera very much," she reveals. "The ensemble work is big and flashy, but the solo is so personal and quiet and introspective." Like Blanche, Wilson's mysterious lady dressed in black is "someone who's seen life and been disappointed by it, but somebody who continues to dream," she comments.

This season DTH numbers forty-five dancers. Endalyn Taylor-Shellman will be absent from the roster, having accepted a role on Broadway, but Kellye Gordon and Richard Witter have returned. Dancers Robert Garland and Tai Jimenez were recently promoted to principal.

Other repertoire scheduled for the season includes: Firebird, by John Taras; Footprints Dressed in Red, by Garth Fagan; and A Song for Dead Warriors, by Michael Smuin, all on Program One. Program Two offers Alvin Ailey's The River, Equus; and Mitchell's own Fate Noire. Another ballet by Mitchell, John Henry, joins Streetcar and John McFall's Toccata e Due Canzoni on Program Three. Program Four is the one devoted to the music of Ginastera; and Program Five will feature Wilson's Concerto in F; Smuin's Medea; and Jeffrey Holder's Caribbean fantasy, Dougla.