Queer Places:
Dance Theatre of Harlem, 466 W 152nd St, New York, NY 10031
Arthur
Adam Mitchell (March 27, 1934 – September 19, 2018) was an American dancer,
choreographer and artistic director. He was the first African American openly gay principal dancer. He danced for New York City Ballet. A star of New York City Ballet and the co-founder of Dance Theatre of
Harlem, Arthur Mitchell was also the first African American principal dancer
in any major ballet company. Mitchell had classical
lines, buoyant energy and a palpable joy in movement. In NYCB, where he danced
from 1955 to 1968, he gained renown for two roles he created: the startlingly
modernist Agon pas de deux, choreographed for him and Diana Adams by
George
Balanchine, and the mischievously bounding Puck in Balanchine’s A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. According to his fellow NYCB dancer Jacques d’Amboise, “every
time we toured Europe, he was a sensation … There would be hundreds of fans at
the stage door.” After Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, Mitchell
had his own dream, which was to form a top-notch ballet company that would
shatter the myth that black bodies were not “right” for ballet. In a garage
lent by the Harlem School of the Arts and with the support of his mentor Karel
Shook (artistic director of Dutch National Ballet), he started a school. They
left the doors open to attract young people from the street. To entice the
boys there, Mitchell compared ballet to basketball, hired drummers instead of
pianists to accompany the class, and allowed them to wear jeans. Within four
months, Dance Theatre of Harlem school had 800 students, and the professional
company debuted in 1971 at the Guggenheim Museum. It thrived for more than
three decades, becoming one of the most sought-after dance companies in the
world.
by Carl Van Vechten
Arthur Adam Mitchell was born in Harlem. His father, Arthur Mitchell Sr,
was a janitor, and his mother, Willie Mae Hearns, raised their five
children. From the age of 12, Arthur helped support his family by shining
shoes and delivering newspapers. He started singing at the local Police
Athletic League, a youth programme run by US police departments, and tap
dancing in neighbourhood studios. A guidance counsellor spotted him dancing at
a junior high school party and suggested he audition for the High School of
Performing Arts (now the Fiorello LaGuardia High School). After graduating
from LaGuardia in 1952, he won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet,
the training ground for Balanchine’s New York City Ballet. He danced with
John
Butler Dance Theater and with the modern choreographers Sophie Maslow, Anna
Sokolow and Donald McKayle before joining NYCB. While still in the corps, he
stepped in for d’Amboise in Balanchine’s Western Symphony. As Puck, he
brightened the entire stage with his devious bounding. For Agon, he had no
problem with Igor Stravinsky’s atonal music. “Because I can tap dance, I can always
find the pulse,” he said. Mitchell praised Balanchine for having an African
American man dance with white ballerinas in the time of civil rights. He was
very aware of the potential controversy of the central pas de deux in Agon.
The man manipulates the woman in ways that bring their bodies into unusual
points of contact. “He used our skin tones as part of the choreography,”
Mitchell said. “Like where I have my arm, or how I would take her foot.”
However angular the choreography, Mitchell, who was promoted to soloist in
1958 and principal in 1962, always presented his ballerina graciously.
The ballerina Allegra Kent, who partnered Mitchell in Agon during an
NYCB tour of the Soviet Union in 1962, recalled how “the audience went wild”
during their performance. She said: “Arthur was a superb partner. His
musicality and stagecraft enhanced the choreography and made his partner look
great.” As co-founder and artistic director of DTH, Mitchell did not perform
on stage, but his infectious energy made his mission come alive for those
around him. One of his innovations was to replace pink tights and pointe shoes
with those dyed to match each dancer’s skin colour, aligning the aesthetic
with the Black Is Beautiful movement. Balanchine supported the enterprise by
giving his ballets gratis, including Agon, Concerto Barocco, Prodigal Son and
Bugaku. However it was Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla (1974) that brought the house
down. With its festive costumes, extreme technique and Trinidadian blend of
African and Hindu traditions, Dougla concluded each programme with a
gloriously giddy celebration. When the company debuted at Sadler’s Wells,
London, in 1974, Mary Clarke wrote in the Guardian: “The company is
irresistible. Young, fresh, still excited about the pleasures of the physical
movement, they move with ease from the most demanding choreography of George
Balanchine to the classical capers of Le Corsaire.”
In addition to Holder, Mitchell
commissioned ballets by John Butler, John Taras and Talley Beatty, and
choreographed a few of his own. He also mounted an evening of works by
Nijinska. Sir Frederic Franklin, of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo fame, staged
Swan Lake and Valerie Bettis’s A Streetcar Named Desire for DTH. But it was
his Creole Giselle that established the group’s ability to weave magic into a
full-length romantic ballet. Mitchell set the ballet in the Louisiana bayou,
and Franklin, who later became artistic adviser of DTH, staged it with
traditional steps, but changed the harvest from grapes to sugar cane. When it
premiered at the London Coliseum in 1984, Creole Giselle received the Olivier
award for the most outstanding dance production of the year. It was broadcast
on US public television in 1987. In 1992 DTH was invited to perform in South
Africa. Mitchell was reluctant, but Nelson Mandela called him and persuaded
him that the young people needed inspiration. The company made the trip and
performed for newly integrated audiences. Mitchell’s experiences teaching
children in the townships inspired him to start the Dancing Through Barriers
outreach programme at DTH. Plagued by financial difficulties in 2004, DTH took
a break. Mitchell named Virginia Johnson artistic director in 2009 but the
company did not resume full operation until 2012. It celebrates its 50th
anniversary in 2018. Mitchell’s awards include a National Medal of Arts, a
Kennedy Center Honor, and a MacArthur “genius award”. Earlier in 2018, Arthur
Mitchell: Harlem’s Ballet Trailblazer, a show celebrating his life and work,
was held at the Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University.
Mitchell died 19 September 2018. The public record is silent about Mitchell's sexuality - it doesn't appear to be something that he ever discussed - however it's generally accepted that he identified as a gay man.
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