Arthur Mitchell

• Born: March 27, 1934
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: September 19, 2018
• Place of death: New York City, New York

Ballet dancer and choreographer

Mitchell was the first African American to join the New York City Ballet. After a fifteen-year career there, he cofounded the Dance Theatre of Harlem to reach out to African American youths.

Early Life

Arthur Mitchell was born in 1934 to Arthur and Willie Mae Mitchell. Growing up in Harlem, New York, Mitchell had a difficult childhood. After his father left, Mitchell’s mother was left alone to raise him and his four siblings. He became involved in dance relatively early, learning to tap dance at the Police Athletic League glee club. After seeing him perform the jitterbug, Mitchell’s high school guidance counselor encouraged him to audition for the New York City High School of Performing Arts, where he received a full scholarship. He went on to study ballet at the school of dance founded by Katherine Dunham.

Life’s Work

After high school, Mitchell won a full scholarship to the American School of Ballet, and in 1955, he became the first African American to join the New York City Ballet (NYCB). The first important piece of his career came in 1957 when George Balanchine choreographed a pas de deux in Agon for Mitchell. After the performance, Mitchell was promoted to soloist and then made history once again as the first black principal dancer in a major ballet company. Mitchell’s portrayal of Puck in NYCB’s 1964 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream represents some of his best work. Other notable pieces from his repertoire include The Nutcracker, Bugaku, and Arcade.

In the late 1960s, advances in civil rights brought Mitchell more opportunities than he had previously experienced. In 1968, he was allowed to perform the pas de deux from Agon on The Tonight Show. He also traveled internationally to help establish ballet companies, including the National Ballet of Brazil. However, during his final trip to Brazil, Mitchell heard news that prompted him to return to his hometown, Harlem: Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Mitchell felt a strong desire to help African American youths in the inner city.

In 1971, with the assistance of his former teacher Karel Shook, he founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Mitchell started teaching thirty students in a church basement; the number quickly swelled to four hundred, prompting Mitchell to use his savings to convert an old garage into a school. He encouraged boys to join by allowing a more relaxed dress code and playing drum music in place of classical piano. The Dance Theatre of Harlem debuted nationally at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1971 and went on to make its mark nationally and internationally.

In 1984, Mitchell adapted Giselle (a ballet traditionally set in eighteenth-century Austria) into Creole Giselle, which depicts free black society in nineteenth-century Louisiana. After premiering at the London Coliseum, Creole Giselle won the Laurence Oliver Award for Best New Dance Production. As part of its outreach efforts, Dance Theatre of Harlem offers the Dancing Through Barriers Program, which hosts activities at New York City schools and community centers. In 1988, Dance Theatre of Harlem was the last American group to perform in the Soviet Union.

In 1991, Mitchell created the Chance to Dance Program with England’s Royal Ballet to create outreach services in London modeled after the programs Mitchell had established in New York. The following year, Dance Theatre of Harlem was invited by Nelson Mandela to perform and conduct outreach for six weeks in South Africa, an event that broke the country’s thirty-year embargo on American culture. In 2000, Dance Theatre of Harlem traveled to Asia, where it performed Firebird for ten sellout houses in China and conducted extensive outreach and education.

After complications due to heart failure, Mitchell died at a hospital in New York City on September 19, 2018, at the age of eighty-four.

Significance

As the first African American in the New York City Ballet, Mitchell paved the way for other dancers to follow. Mitchell’s largest undertaking, Dance Theatre of Harlem, created outreach programs that have had a lasting impact on youths around the world. In 2009, though the professional company was forced to go on hiatus due to increased debt in 2004 and former company member Virginia Johnson had been chosen to succeed Mitchell as artistic director in an effort to continue strengthening the company, Dance Theatre of Harlem reported serving more than twenty-five thousand young people. Mitchell, who was made artistic director emeritus of Dance Theatre of Harlem, won numerous awards, including a Kennedy Center Honor in 1994 and a National Medal of Arts in 1995. Mitchell received living landmark status from the New York Landmark Conservancy, and in 1998, he was inducted into the National Museum of Dance’s Hall of Fame. In January 2018, his influence still significant, he was the subject of an exhibit at New York's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery titled Arthur Mitchell: Harlem's Ballet Trailblazer.

Bibliography

Beckford, Ruth. Katherine Dunham: A Biography. Marcel Dekker, 1979. In his foreword to Dunham’s biography, Mitchell writes from the perspective of a former student.

Dunning, Jennifer. "Arthur Mitchell Is Dead at 84; Showed the Way for Black Dancers." The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/obituaries/arthur-mitchell-dead.html. Accessed 20 Nov. 2018.

Grinberg, Emanuella. "Arthur Mitchell, Co-Founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dies at 84." CNN, 20 Sept. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/09/19/us/arthur-mitchell-dance-theater-of-harlem-dies/index.html. Accessed 20 Nov. 2018.

Martin, Waldo E. No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics and Postwar America. Harvard UP, 2005. Martin examines how Mitchell and fellow African American dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey both embraced and looked to move beyond their racial identity.

Singer, Toba. “Arthur Mitchell.” First Position: A Century of Ballet Artists. Praeger, 2007. Profile of Mitchell details his biography, dance style and training, and relationships with other notable dancers, choreographers, and directors.