02/28/2024
As February comes to a close, our final Black History Month feature is Arthur Mitchell!
“Dancer, choreographer and artistic director Arthur Mitchell was born on March 27, 1934 in Harlem, New York. After graduating from high school in 1952, Mitchell received scholarships to attend the Dunham School and the School of American Ballet. He joined John Butler’s dance company in Europe before the general director of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), invited him to join NYCB’s corps de ballet. Mitchell became the first African American permanent member of a major American ballet company in 1955. Then, in 1957, famed ballet choreographer George Balanchine choreographed Agon pas de deux, considered to be the first in*******al duet in American ballet, for Mitchell and Diana Adams. Balanchine choreographed the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Mitchell, as Mitchell performed in a succession of NYCB productions, including Bugaku and Arcade. In 1966, Mitchell organized the American Negro Dance Company, which represented the U.S. at the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. Mitchell then founded the National Ballet Company of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro in 1968. Mitchell, with mentor and friend Karel Shook, co-founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969, the first black classical ballet company, which debuted at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1971. When the Dance Theatre of Harlem performed in South Africa in 1992, it launched its international outreach program, Dancing Through Barriers, designed to educate children in dance through master classes and open rehearsals.”
(Quote pulled from an interview with Arthur Mitchell on thehistorymakers.org)
