Interesting Facts

 One of the most interesting things I learned about Arthur Mitchell was about the program he started in 1992 called Dancing Through Barriers. They had this program occurring through major cities of America and the clean was to work with local schools and colleges to give demonstrations on dance, costumes, lights, sceneries and to teach classes and hold workshops for further study at the Dance Theater of Harlem. Mitchell added on to this program with international reach when Nelson Mandela reached out two years before his election during the apartheid in South Africa and invited Mitchell to bring opportunities to students. Mitchell took great care not to teach but to share information and build community. It was said that the DTH staff would help with things from ‘how to do a pas de deux to how to apply for a visa’. Mitchell didn’t want to spend his time working politically but for his work to make waves psychologically and to push past social barriers as well. 

(Written by Valerie Gladstone; in Dance Magazine, Vol. 71, no. 3, March, 1997)

His dedication to young people seems to come from his own ideas of self motivation and the dedication he had for his love of art and movement. He says in an interview with Darryl Wood that dance is extremely natural to people because it comes from movement. We move in the womb before birth, we move our limbs and bodies to make gestures in efforts to people to people without a translator. He found movement to be a natural way to express oneself and especially for young kids of color, it’s a way to find confidence in their lives (Gladstone). 

Mitchell mentions in an interview that he could choose to be angry about the systematic racism he experienced growing up and throughout his career. That he could choose violence and angry as an attempt to get what he wanted. But he didn’t feel like that was the role he wanted in his life. He believed in working hard to get what he needed. This being during the time of the Civil Right Movement, I can’t help but wonder if these ideas he expressed were also in political reference to movements like the Black Panters and the separation one had to create to be seen as a ‘respectable’ and ‘hardworking’ person of color. Even though most of his efforts for building education centers like DTH are in direct response to the movements and social sphere at the time (American Black Journal)

(Creole Giselle, September 1987. Dance Theater of Harlem London, England. Reconceived by Arthur Mitchell and staged by Frederic Franklin, based on the original by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot)