Артур Митчелл: Америкалық балет өнерінің жарық жұлдызы

African American ballet dancer, choreographer, and company director (1934 2018)

Arthur Mitchell (March 27, 1934 – September 19, 2018) was an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and founder and director of ballet companies. In 1955, he was the first African American dancer with the New York City Ballet, where he was promoted to principal dancer the following year and danced in major roles until 1966. He then founded ballet companies in Spoleto, Washington, D. C., and Brazil. In 1969, he founded a training school and the first African American classical ballet company, Dance Theatre of Harlem. Among other awards, Mitchell was recognized as a MacArthur Fellow, inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame, and received the United States National Medal of Arts and a Fletcher Foundation fellowship.

Mitchell was one of four siblings, the son of a building superintendent, and grew up in the streets of Harlem, New York. As a teenager, Mitchell was encouraged by a guidance counselor to apply for admission to the High School of Performing Arts.

In 1955 Mitchell made his debut as the first African American with the New York City Ballet (NYCB), performing in Western Symphony. Mitchell left the New York City Ballet in 1966 to appear in several Broadway shows, and helped found ballet companies in Spoleto, Washington, D. C., and Brazil, where he directed a dance company. The company he founded in Brazil was the National Ballet Company of Brazil. Mitchell had $25,000 of his own money to start the school. About a year later he received $315,000 in a matching funds grant from the Ford Foundation. In Harlem, DTH created an explosion of professional opportunity in dance, music, and other related theater activities. The school has an outstanding number of former students who have been successfully engaged in careers as dancers and musicians, as technicians in production, stagecraft, and wardrobe, and in instruction and arts administration. With this success, DTH challenged the classical dance world to review its stereotypes and revise its boundaries.

He died on September 19, 2018, from renal failure.