Thursday, September 20, 2018
Today I read that Arthur Mitchell had died. He was well known for breaking the ‘color barrier’ in classical ballet as the first ‘Negro’ ballet dancer with the New York City Ballet. It was on the stage of NYC’s City Center in 1957, the year I was born that George Balanchine partnered Arthur Mitchell with Diana Adams a white ballerina in his duet Agon to the shock of the art world that said black bodies were not able to do European Classical Ballet. Mr. Mitchell went on to co-found the Dance Theater of Harlem with Karel Shook which provided a training school and classical ballet company for Black dancers following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dance Theater of Harlem proved definitively that African bodies given the training can not only do but can excel at forms of classical ballet. Yet today, almost 50 years later DTH is still the only classical ballet company to highlight black dancers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sviSEkFJgQs
It was 1976 my first year as a dance major at Brooklyn College, when Arthur Mitchell picked me up….literally.
The day started, as all days do for modern dance students, barefoot in tights and leotards. We were told that a guest would be stopping by to observe class. After 10 minutes or so of the warm-up series, a tall slender dark skinned man came in accompanied by the school director. He stood watching for a few minutes as we proceeded through the routine floor series of Graham contractions. It was not so much that Mr. Mitchell was famous, a star dancer and the co-founder of DTH that has stayed with me, but more the embodied dignity and elegance he radiated. It was as if ballet and it’s royal carriage infused his muscles, and extended through the suit he wore magnetizing the air. Then without a hesitation he said politely to the teacher, “May I?” and he masterfully took charge of the class. He spoke a few inspiring, now forgotten words then asked us to continue with class.
Mr. Mitchell prompted and corrected us through the exercises. I was surprised that he did not ask us to shift to a ballet vocabulary. Until then I had held firm in my belief that ballet dancers didn’t know anything about modern dance. This was evidently not true.
He walked through the spaces between students, dancers he called us, as he unapologetically demanded excellence in our execution of the class exercises. It was clear that for him there was nothing mundane about the foundations of training that we were engaged in.
Suddenly he turned and came towards me asking me to hold my position. The room is etched in my mind. It was large with wood floors and floor to ceiling mirrors, I was to the right of center one row from the front. My legs stretched out in second position on the floor, my torso curved forward in a scooped out signature Graham contraction. Arthur Mitchell somehow magically lifted me up, high over his head, his arms straightened towards the ceiling. I was stunned, determined not to waiver, I held steady in my position suspended in the air as he turned me around in the space overlooking my wide eyed classmates. The words are long gone but my body recalls ‘success’ as he lowered me and I returned humbly to my place in the room, containing the thrill as he said some words that felt like, “Yes class, this is how it is done”.
Even now in the timeless knowing of my body, I am there in the studio, the floor far below, the expansive view of above, feeling the complete confidence that didn’t allow even a second of a doubt, or a drop of a thought that I could be dropped. For I was securely in the hands of a master, experienced hands that knew how to hold a ballerina, hands that did not hesitate to pick up a white 17 year old girl leaving a life long impression, infusing her with the courage to risk dropping out of college and leaping into a life of a dance in New York City.
Anraku