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Mark Meismer grew up in Orange County, California where he trained for four years at the Orange County High School of the Arts. Mark has been dancing and teaching professionally for twenty years.

Mark has danced and worked with artists such as Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, Madonna, Paula Abdul and toured with Reba McEntire from 2000 to 2002.

Some of his TV credits include; "Scrubs", "Will and Grace", "The George Lopez Show", "Home Improvement", "Mad About You", "The Hughleys", "The MTV Video Music Awards", "The American Music Awards" and "The VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards" "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno and the Rosie O'Donnell show.

Some of Marks film credits include; "Jackass 2", "Austin Powers 2", "Austin Powers 3 Goldmember", "Starsky and Hutch", "Gigli" "North"and "A Time For Dancing".

He has danced in commercials for Dr. Pepper, Reebok, Pepsi, Toyota and Frito Lay.

Mark is also an original member of Mia Michaels dance company "RAW" based out of New York City. He was the assistant choreographer to Mia on Celine Dion's show "A New Day" in Las Vegas and assisted Mia on the FOX TV reality show "So U Think U Can Dance".

Mark was a faculty member of LA Dance Magic for 9 years and currently teaches master classes and workshops across the country.

Mark has choreographed for the TV shows "Dancing With The Stars", "Scrubs" and "The George Lopez" show.

Mark also added the title of Artistic Directo r to his resume when he started his own Dance Company: "Evolution".

Mark has had a very diverse career in concert dance and commercial dance, however his biggest accomplishment and proudest achievement is being a dad to his beautiful daughter Ryan.

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Mark Meismer grew up in Orange County, California where he trained for four years at the Orange County High School of the Arts. Mark has been dancing and teaching professionally for twenty years. Mark has danced and worked with artists such as Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, Madonna, Paula Abdul and toured with Reba McEntire from 2000 to 2002.

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Mandy Moore

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MAIN STUDIO | CHILDREN & TEENS | CTP COVID-19 | SHOP

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Virginia Johnson

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Virginia Johnson is a dance icon. She joined Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969 as a founding company member, and prima ballerina, and returned to it in 2009 as its artistic director.

Born in Washington, DC, Johnson graduated from the Academy of the Washington School of Ballet. She briefly attended the School of the Arts at New York University as a University Scholar before joining DTH in 1969. During her 28 years with the company she performed most of the repertoire, with principal roles in Concerto Barocco, Allegro Brillante, Agon, A Streetcar Named Desire, Fall River Legend, Swan Lake, Giselle, Voluntaries, Les Biches and others.

Three DTH productions in which she danced leading roles were recorded for broadcast: A Streetcar Named Desire for Dance in America on PBS, Creole Giselle, which was the first full-length ballet broadcast on NBC, and Fall River Legend, which won a cable ACE award from the Bravo Network. In addition, she was included in two acclaimed television dance series, Margot Fonteyn's The Magic of Dance and Natalia Makarova's Ballerina.

While still performing, her interest in journalism led her to Fordham University where she continues to pursue a degree in communications. After retiring from performing, She founded Pointe Magazine and was editor-in-chief from 2000-2009.

Her honors include a Young Achiever Award from the National Council of Women, Outstanding Young Woman of America and the Dance Magazine Award, a Pen and Brush Achievement Award and the Washington Performing Arts Society's 2008-2009 Pola Nirenska Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2009 Martha Hill Fund Mid-Career Award.

Here is her story, her advice and her vision for the future of ballet.
When, where and why did you first get involved in ballet? What hooked you?
"I grew up in Washington, D.C., and my mother was in a women's club of many people that had gone to school together, grown up in childhood and stuck together as friends. It was a very close-knit group. I had this friend named Therrell Smith, who was the daughter of a doctor, so they were the wealthier of the folks in the group. Therrell Smith had fallen in love with classical ballet as a young person. She really wanted to study ballet but couldn't find any place to teach her. Of course we're talking about the 1940s, the 1950s, and the idea of black people dancing ballet just did not exist, nor were any of the studios integrated, so there wasn't any place that she could go to study ballet. But, as I said, she was the daughter of a doctor so she had the resources to take herself off to Paris where she studied and got her training in ballet. And she came back to Washington and opened up her own dance studio. My mom wanted to support her friend and send her two daughters off to study with Therrell... I fell in love with it. I think I was infected by Therrell's love of the art form. I also just loved the music and loved the movement and loved the sense of order that you felt - everything in its place and everything right. It was something that I fell in love with right away.

I just loved the music and loved the movement and loved the sense of order that you felt - everything in its place and everything right. It was something that I fell in love with right away.

I want you to know that I was a little bit of an ugly duckling. I didn't have any sense of rhythm and I couldn't quite get it for many years, but I still loved it. It was a love-hate relationship for a good long time. I think I have a deep sense of, what is it, masochism. Because it's a very difficult art form and I was always disappointed in what I was doing, as you'll hear from many ballet dancers. But I also believed in the ideal that I was trying to achieve and pursuing that ideal was really why I did it. It's something that's always just beyond your reach. And that's what makes you get up in the morning and makes you keep pushing through hard times. You know there's something really beautiful ahead of you if you can just make yourself do it."

But I also believed in the ideal that I was trying to achieve and pursuing that ideal was really why I did it. It's something that's always just beyond your reach. And that's what makes you get up in the morning and makes you keep pushing through hard times. You know there's something really beautiful ahead of you if you can just make yourself do it."

Was there a turning point or epiphany moment when you chose to pursue ballet as your career?
"I don't know, I think I must have always imagined myself on the stage. I don't remember a particular point. I did seek out many performance opportunities as a young person. I performed with the Children's Theatre in Washington and Therrell would have her annual recital. So those things were constantly out there. I think I kind of assumed that I would be on the stage."
What was it like to dance during the Civil Rights Movement, through segregation, through this time in American history? What types of challenges did you encounter? How did you work through them and keep pushing?
"There were so many people that told me that I didn't belong in ballet. Things that I just didn't hear. When I graduated from the Academy of the Washington School of Ballet, where Mary Day had me as a full scholarship student for three years, she said to me, 'you know what, you're just not going to be a ballerina. You've got all kinds of talent, but there's no place for you in ballet.' That was the first time that I actually heard it with any seriousness. But she said this to me as I was leaving. So I thought, well you gave me the best training I could possibly have had knowing that there was no place for me to go. But you did it anyway, so I thank you for that.

I think you've heard from a lot of people who are not necessarily caucasian that you don't think of yourself as 'the other' until somebody tells you that you are. I thought of myself as a normal person pursuing a dream. And I had to have these reminders thrown at me that I wasn't a normal person and I didn't have a right to that dream. So when I got to New York, I was at NYU in the dance department, and somebody said that Arthur Mitchell was teaching ballet classes in Harlem on Saturdays...That was when I found out he was creating the Dance Theatre of Harlem and I lobbied with my parents to give me the chance to drop out of school and pursue this dream in the basement of a church in Harlem.

The thing that was really interesting was that it was the 1960s and it was the middle of the Civil Rights Movement and it was also the National Black Arts Movement where people were going, 'Why are you trying to do the white man's art form. You should be doing African dance.' Well, who is anybody aside from me to say what I should do with my life? Black people. White people. Yellow people. Purple people. I'm an individual. I have a dream, I should be able to pursue that dream.

Well, who is anybody aside from me to say what I should do with my life? Black people. White people. Yellow people. Purple people. I'm an individual. I have a dream, I should be able to pursue that dream.

So it was an interesting time, but I think it also cemented my commitment to being a ballerina. And Dance Theatre of Harlem gave me the chance to make it mean something more than just my pleasure. It was about saying, 'Look. Self-definition is part of being an American. And let us show you how black people can do ballet. How not just black people, but how anyone, given opportunity and access, can do ballet.'"
What special quality did you bring to your performances?
"I just loved dancing. I loved, loved dancing. I think that love is something that communicated. It's just the joy of being able to do this thing."
What are some of your most unforgettable performance moments?
"My strength was the dramatic ballets and I did a number of them. It was always such a great thing to be in the middle of a ballet like Giselle or Fall River Legend or even A Streetcar Named Desire where everything disappears and you're just living this reality that doesn't exist. That it could be so real was always an amazing thing to me...that sensation of reality always surprised me."
Throughout your years in the field, from founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem to its artistic director, what types of changes have you witnessed in ballet?
"The ballet world has come a long, long, long, long, long way from the world that I grew up in. Well, in some ways it has and in some ways I see vestiges of it lying around. But when I was growing up, dancers were expected to be little cloistered nuns who danced all day until their toes were bloody and then came home and washed their tights and went to bed. They didn't eat anything, they didn't talk to anybody and they didn't have any ideas in their heads because they were just the vessels for somebody to turn into art. That's an antique image that is horrible when you think about it. And I think it's not true at all...The real thing is that nowadays artistic directors want students who are smart, who have information, who can bring something to the table, who are mature.

The real thing is that nowadays artistic directors want students who are smart, who have information, who can bring something to the table, who are mature.

So that idea of being vessels to be filled by somebody else's vision is no longer current and I think that's fantastic. Ballet dancers are dedicated, strong and I think it's a sense of responsibility that's just not the same image as before. And I'm very pleased about that. I try to encourage (my dancers) to be thinkers, to solve problems for themselves, to understand what they're doing and how it works."
What is one thing that you think we in the ballet world need to work harder to change?
"Just the notion of what this classical art form is. It doesn't belong in the 19th century, it belongs in the 21st century and we need to be defining how it does. Our audiences have become addicted to these wonderful story ballets. They don't understand the other things that we're doing, so let us help them understand. Because this is a communicative art, and we need to have people want to come to ballet because it gives them something they can't find anywhere else."
What is your advice to young dancers today?
"I definitely do suggest that they work harder and that they work smarter - that they don't work just to work hard, but that they work to achieve a very specific goal. That they need to be informed about their art form, about the music, about the history, about how it comes together. When a choreographer comes in to set something to a piece of music they should be trying to find out more about the composer, about the history of that music... Be curious. Ah, be curious. That's what it is. I think because we learn ballet by people telling us, we think that anything we need to know we'll be told. We need to be out seeking for more, enriching our work as dancers."
What are you most proud of about Dance Theatre of Harlem's contributions to ballet as an art form?
"I think it really is doing what Arthur Mitchell set out to do to have people look at this art form with new eyes. Because we are unexpected. I try really hard for our repertoire to be unexpected as well. So that people don't say, 'Oh I know what that is.' Again, we go back to that word: curiosity."
What do you hope to see in ballet's future? What types of possibilities do you see?
"Dance Theatre of Harlem is a touring company. And even though it's really horribly hard work that I wouldn't want to wish on anybody, I also wish it on everyone. Because it's an amazing thing to travel around this country and see the similarities and the differences in communities across the country and to be able to engage with people in different places. There's a commonality that we all need to plug into and I feel like the arts are the thing that brings people together.

There's a commonality that we all need to plug into and I feel like the arts are the thing that brings people together.

So I would wish for that amazing touring program that was part of the '80s to come back so that companies like PBT and Dance Theatre of Harlem and Cincinnati and Houston and all these companies could travel around with all their vision of ballet is so that people could understand how rich it is. It's not just one thing."
Who were your role models as a young person? Were there dancers who inspired and empowered you at any moment in your career similar to what's happening now with Misty Copeland?
"When I was growing up in Washington, in junior high school, they took us to see Martha Graham perform at a theater in Washington.I wasn't all that interested because it was modern dance. But there's this moment when Mary Hinkson steps onto the stage. She was one of the early members of the Graham company and just a sublime dancer, the most exquisite dancer you can imagine. She stepped onto the stage and I sat bolt upright in my seat. I was like, 'Oh my God. There's somebody who looks like me on the stage.' I didn't know that I had missed myself on the stage before that moment. I didn't know that I had been looking for some kind of affirmation of my desire to be on the stage, but in that moment I really felt it.

I was like, 'Oh my God. There's somebody who looks like me on the stage.' I didn't know that I had missed myself on the stage before that moment. I didn't know that I had been looking for some kind of affirmation of my desire to be on the stage, but in that moment I really felt it.

It's kind of a weird thing. It's not something that's in the front of your brain, but it's in the back of your brain.

The eight years that DTH was not touring I think were a setback in terms of young dancers of color feeling like there was a place for them in ballet because most of the companies didn't have a dancer of color, most of the schools didn't have anybody that made them feel welcome. Unless you're a total maniac, why do you push yourself to do something that's not welcoming. That notion of a role model is an important one. On March 19, 2017 we're actually celebrating the 100th anniversary of Janet Collins, who was the first ballerina of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. She had quite an amazing life, but if you say the name Janet Collins to someone right now, they're not going to know who she is. And yet, she was a trailblazer. She was a person who made it possible for me to do what I did.

It goes in waves like that. I'm glad that Misty Copeland has captured the imagination of so many people, because it's important for people to have that kind of inspiration. She's not the first, she's not going to be the last. But, it's somebody that you can look to and say, I can do that too."
What are you looking forward to about our collaboration in Pittsburgh and why do you think it's important?
"I think it's so fantastic for Terry to invite us to be part of this performance series. Being at the August Wilson Center is going to be so amazing. I know the history of the center. I certainly am a...fan is the wrong word when you think about August Wilson as a writer, as a chronicler of American experience. It's so meaningful that this is happening. We're at this moment where we're almost there. We're full of anxiety and full of anticipation and just like, OK it's really going to happen now. This is a wonderful opportunity and I'm so grateful for it."

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Meet Virginia Johnson: From Prima Ballerina to Dance Theatre of Harlem Artistic Director - Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre

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Virginia Johnson is a dance icon. She joined Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969 as a founding company member, and prima ballerina, and returned to it in 2009 as its artistic director. Born in Washington, DC, Johnson graduated from the Academy of the Washington School of Ballet.

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Mikhail Baryshnikov

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Born 1948 in Riga, Latvia, Mikhail Baryshnikov is considered one of the greatest dancers of our time. After commencing a spectacular career with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he came to the West in 1974, settling in New York City as principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT). In 1978 he joined New York City Ballet, where he worked with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. A year later he was appointed artistic director of ABT where, for the next decade, he introduced a new generation of dancers and choreographers. From 1990-2002, Mr. Baryshnikov was director and dancer of the White Oak Dance Project, which he and choreographer Mark Morris co-founded to expand the repertoire and visibility of American modern dance. As an actor he has performed widely on- and off-Broadway, as well as in television and film, receiving a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Metamorphosis, and an Academy Award nomination for The Turning Point. Other theatrical productions include Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor and the Patient, Beckett Shorts, In Paris, Man in a Case, The Old Woman, and Letter to a Man. He recently toured Brodsky/Baryshnikov, a theatrical solo work directed by Latvian director Alvis Hermanis. Current projects include NOT ONCE., a cinematic installation developed in collaboration with Jan Fabre and Phil Griffin, and a second theatrical production directed by Hermanis entitled The White Helicopter which premiered November 2019 at The New Riga Theatre. In 2005, he launched Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) in New York City, a creative space designed to support multidisciplinary artists from around the globe. Among Mr. Baryshnikov's many awards are the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, the Commonwealth Award, the Chubb Fellowship, the Jerome Robbins Award, and the Vilcek Award. In 2010, he was given the rank of Officer of the French Legion of Honor, and in 2017 he received Japan's prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award in Theatre/Film.

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Born 1948 in Riga, Latvia, Mikhail Baryshnikov is considered one of the greatest dancers of our time. After commencing a spectacular career with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he came to the West in 1974, settling in New York City as principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT).

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Sylvie Guillem

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Biography

Born in 1965 in Paris, Sylvie Guillem is undoubtedly one of the most important dancers of her generation.

Trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School from the age of 11, she entered the company at 16. Only three years later, Rudolf Nureyev appointed her étoile, making her the youngest ballerina to receive this distinction in the Paris Opera Ballet's history.

Although she is adored by the Parisian audience, Sylvie Guillem decides to leave Paris and join the Royal Ballet London. There she acquires more freedom and can even dance with the greatest companies worldwide.

Admired by the critics and choreographers alike, she had the privilege to premiere choreographies by such great names as Maurice Béjart, Mats Ek and William Forsythe.

She bade farewell to ballet in 2015 with a final tour, Life in Progress.

All videos related to Sylvie Guillem (8)

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Biography Born in 1965 in Paris, Sylvie Guillem is undoubtedly one of the most important dancers of her generation. Trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School from the age of 11, she entered the company at 16. Only three years later, Rudolf Nureyev appointed her étoile, making her the youngest ballerina to receive this distinction in the Paris Opera Ballet's history.

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Anna Pavlova

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Quick Facts

Name

Anna Pavlova

Birth Date

February 12, 1881

Death Date

January 23, 1931

Education

Imperial School of Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre

Place of Birth

St. Petersburg, Russia

Place of Death

The Hague, Netherlands

Full Name

Anna Pavlovna Pavlova

Anna Pavlova was a famous Russian prima ballerina and choreographer. The company she founded in 1911 was the first to tour ballet around the world.

Synopsis

Anna Pavlova was a Russian prima ballerina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After attending the Imperial Ballet School, she made her company debut in 1899 and quickly became a prima ballerina. Her breakthrough performance was in The Dying Swan in 1905, which became her signature role. She joined the Ballet Russe in 1909 and formed her own company in 1911.

Early Life

Anna Matveyevna Pavlovna Pavlova was born on February 12, 1881 - a cold and snowy winter's day - in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her mother, Lyubov Feodorovna was a washerwoman and her stepfather, Matvey Pavlov, was a reserve soldier. The identity of Pavlova's biological father is unknown, though some speculate that her mother had an affair with a banker named Lazar Poliakoff. As a child, Pavlova preferred to believe she was a product of an earlier marriage. She told people her mother had once been married to a man named Pavel, who died when she was just a toddler. Yet this Pavel remains something of a mystery to historians and biographers.

From early on, Pavlova's active imagination and love of fantasy drew her to the world of ballet. Looking back on her childhood, Pavlova described her budding passion for ballet accordingly: "I always wanted to dance; from my youngest years...Thus I built castles in the air out of my hopes and dreams."

Although they were poor, Pavlova and her mother were able to see a performance of The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg when she was 8 years old. Captivated by what she saw, the wide-eyed little girl declared she was resolved to become a ballet dancer. Her mother enthusiastically supported her pursuit. Within just two years, Pavlova was accepted at the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet School, after passing the entrance exam with flying colors. The school was directed by famed ballet master Marius Petipa.

At the Imperial Ballet School, Petipa and Pavlova's teachers, Ekaterina Vazem and Pavel Gerdt, quickly recognized her extraordinary gift. A dedicated and ambitious student, Pavlova knew a successful ballet career would require a lot more than just talent. Her natural gift for dance, combined with her tireless work ethic, is here summarized in her own words: "No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent, work transforms talent into genius." In 1899, Pavlova graduated from the St. Petersburg Imperial Dance School at the age of 18-gracefully leaping from school to stage in her hard-earned transformation from ballet student to prima ballerina in the making.

Ballet Career

Because Pavlova graduated as a coryphée, she was able to skip right over dancing in a corps de ballet. In other words, she bypassed the usual initiation rite of dancing in large groups and was permitted to dance in smaller groups right away. Fresh out of dance school, on September 19, 1899, the gifted young ballerina made her company debut, dancing in a group of three in La Fille Mal Gardée. The performance took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg-the same theater where, as a child, Pavlova had first decided to become a dancer.

Pavlova's career soon blossomed. With every performance, she gained increasing critical acclaim and subsequent fame. But it was in 1905 that Pavlova made her breakthrough performance, when she danced the lead solo in choreographer Michael Fokine's The Dying Swan, with music by Camille Saint-Saëns. With her delicate movements and intense facial expressions, Pavlova managed to convey to the audience the play's complex message about the fragility and preciousness of life. The Dying Swan was to become Pavlova's signature role.

Pavlova continued to rise quickly through the ranks. By 1906, she had already successfully danced the difficult part of Giselle. Just seven years into her ballet career, Pavlova was promoted to prima ballerina.

Accompanied by a handful of other dancers, in 1907, Pavlova took leave on her first tour abroad. The tour stopped at capital cities throughout Europe-including Berlin, Copenhagen and Prague, among others. In response to the critical acclaim her performances received, Pavlova signed up for a second tour in 1908.

In 1909, after having completed her second tour, Pavlova was invited to join Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe on its historic tour, during the opening season in Paris. Pavlova's fellow dancers in the company included the likes of Laurent Novikoff, Thadee Slavinsky, Olga Spessivtzeva, Anatole Vilz and Alexander Volinine. While touring, the Ballet Russe frequently visited Australia, and there played an instrumental role in Russian ballet's influence on the future of Australian dance. During 1910, Pavlova toured the United Kingdom and the United States. When she wasn't dancing solo, her more notable dance partners included Laurent Novikoff and Pierre Vladimirov.

In 1911, Pavlova took a major step in her career-by forming her own ballet company. As a result, Pavlova was able to retain complete creative control over performances and even choreograph her own roles. Pavlova put her husband, Victor Dandré, in charge of organizing her independent tours. For the final two decades of her ballet career, she toured with her company all over the world, as little girls watched in awe and were inspired to become dancers, the same way she had been at the Mariinsky Theatre all those years ago.

Death and Legacy

In 1930, when Pavlova was 50 years old, her 30-year dance career had come to physically wear on her. She decided to take a Christmas vacation after wrapping up a particularly arduous tour in England. At the end of her vacation, she boarded a train back to The Hague, where she planned to resume dancing. On its way from Cannes to Paris, the train was in an accident. Although Pavlova was unharmed in the accident, she was forced to wait out the delay outside on the train platform for 12 hours.

It was a snowy evening, and Pavlova was only wearing only a thin jacket and flimsy silk pajamas. Once in Holland, within days of the accident, she developed double pneumonia and her illness quickly worsened. On her deathbed, Pavlova, passionate about dance until her final breath, asked to see her swan costume one last time. She died in The Hague, Netherlands, in the wee hours of the morning, on January 23, 1931. Her ashes were interred at Golders Green Cemetery, near the Ivy House where she had lived with her manager and husband in London, England.

Pavlova was one of the most celebrated and influential ballet dancers of her time. Her passion and grace are captured in striking photographic portraits. Her legacy lives on through dance schools, societies and companies established in her honor, and perhaps most powerfully, in the future generations of dancers she inspired.

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Name Anna Pavlova Birth Date February 12, 1881 Death Date January 23, 1931 Education Imperial School of Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre Place of Birth St. Petersburg, Russia Place of Death The Hague, Netherlands Full Name Anna Pavlovna Pavlova Anna Pavlova was a famous Russian prima ballerina and choreographer.

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Arthur Mitchell

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Biography

Dancer, choreographer and artistic director Arthur Mitchell was born on March 27, 1934 in Harlem, New York to Arthur Mitchell, Sr. and Willie Hearns Mitchell. He attended the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. In addition to academics, Mitchell was a member of the New Dance Group, the Choreographers Workshop, Donald McKayle and Company, and High School of Performing Arts' Repertory Dance Company. After graduating from high school in 1952, Mitchell received scholarships to attend the Dunham School and the School of American Ballet.

In 1954, Mitchell danced on Broadway in House of Flowers with Geoffrey Holder, Louis Johnson, Donald McKayle, Alvin Ailey and Pearl Bailey. He joined John Butler's dance company in Europe before Lincoln Kirstein, general director of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), invited him to join NYCB's corps de ballet. Mitchell became the first African American permanent member of a major American ballet company in 1955, when he performed with Tanaquil Le Clercq in Western Symphony. Then, in 1957, famed ballet choreographer George Balanchine choreographed Agon pas de deux, considered to be the first interracial duet in American ballet, for Mitchell and Diana Adams. Balanchine choreographed the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream for Mitchell, as Mitchell performed in a succession of NYCB productions, including Bugaku and Arcade, throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1966, Mitchell organized the American Negro Dance Company, which represented the U.S. at the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. Mitchell then founded the National Ballet Company of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro in 1968. Mitchell, with mentor and friend Karel Shook, co-founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969, the first black classical ballet company, which debuted at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1971. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Dance Theatre of Harlem produced ballets, including Dougla, Troy Game, The Firebird and Creole Giselle. When the Dance Theatre of Harlem performed in South Africa in 1992, it launched its international outreach program, Dancing Through Barriers, designed to educate children in dance through master classes and open rehearsals.

Mitchell received numerous awards. In 1993, he was recognized by the Kennedy Center Honors, and was named a MacArthur Genius Fellow in 1994. President Bill Clinton presented Mitchell with a U.S. National Medal of Arts in 1995. Then, in 1999, Mitchell was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame, the only U.S. museum dedicated exclusively to dance. He received the Heinz Award in Art and Humanities in 2001, and was featured in a PBS American Masters documentary, Balanchine in 2004. Between 2009 and 2010, the exhibit "Dance Theatre of Harlem: 40 Years of Firsts" premiered in New York City and Los Angeles. Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired Mitchell's archives, its first major dance collection, in 2015.

Mitchell passed away on September 19, 2018.

Arthur Mitchell was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on October 6, 2016.

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Dancer, choreographer and artistic director Arthur Mitchell was born on March 27, 1934 in Harlem, New York to Arthur Mitchell, Sr. and Willie Hearns Mitchell. He attended the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. In addition to academics, Mitchell was a member of the New Dance Group, the Choreographers Workshop, Donald McKayle and Company, and High School of Performing Arts' Repertory Dance Company.

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Martha Graham

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THE FIRST AND THE FUTURE The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a world leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. OUR HISTORY THE FIRST AND THE FUTURE The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a world leader

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Alvin Ailey

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Born: January 5, 1931
Rogers, Texas
Died: December 1, 1989
New York, New York
African American dancer and choreographer

Alvin Ailey founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and won international fame as both a dancer and choreographer, a creator and arranger of dance performances.

Rough beginning

Alvin Ailey Jr. was born to Alvin and Lula Elizabeth Ailey on January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas. He was an only child, and his father, a laborer, left the family when Alvin Jr. was less than one year old. At the age of six, Alvin Jr. moved with his mother to Navasota, Texas. As he recalled in an interview in the New York Daily News Magazine, "There was the white school up on the hill, and the black Baptist church, and the segregated [only members of one race allowed] theaters and neighborhoods. Like most of my generation, I grew up feeling like an outsider, like someone who didn't matter."

In 1942 Ailey and his mother moved to Los Angeles, California, where his mother found work in an aircraft factory. Ailey became interested in athletics and joined his high school gymnastics team and played football. An admirer of dancers Gene Kelly (1912-1996) and Fred Astaire (1899-1987), he also took tap dancing lessons at a neighbor's home. His interest in dance grew when a friend took him to visit the modern dance school run by Lester Horton, whose dance company (a group of dancers who perform together) was the first in America to admit members of all races. Unsure of what opportunities would be available for him as a dancer, however, Ailey left Horton's school after one month. After graduating from high school in 1948, Ailey considered becoming a teacher. He entered the University of California in Los Angeles to study languages. When Horton offered him a scholarship in 1949 Ailey returned to the dance school. He left again after one year, however, this time to attend San Francisco State College.

Early career

For a time Ailey danced in a nightclub in San Francisco, California, then he returned to the Horton school to finish his training. When Horton took the company east for a performance in New York City in 1953, Ailey was with him. When Horton died suddenly, the young Ailey took charge as the company's artistic director. Following Horton's style, Ailey choreographed two pieces that were presented at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts. After the works received poor reviews from the festival manager, the troupe broke up.

Despite the setback, Ailey's career stayed on track. A Broadway producer invited him to dance in House of Flowers, a musical based on Truman Capote's (1924-1984) book. Ailey continued taking dance classes while performing in the show. He also studied ballet and acting. From the mid-1950s through the early 1960s Ailey appeared in many musical productions on and off Broadway, among them: The Carefree Tree; Sing, Man, Sing; Jamaica; and Call Me By My Rightful Name. He also played a major part in the play Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright.

In 1958 Ailey and another dancer with an interest in choreographing recruited dancers to perform several concerts at the 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association in New York City, a place where modern dances and the works of new choreographers were seen. Ailey's first major piece, Blues Suite, was inspired by blues music. The performance drew praise. Ailey then scheduled a second concert to present his own works, and then a third, which featured his most famous piece, Revelations. Accompanied by the elegant jazz music of Duke Ellington (1899-1974), Revelations pulled the audience into African American religious life.

Established own dance company

In 1959 Ailey established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a group of eight black dancers. One year later, the theater became the resident dance company at the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. By the mid-1960s Ailey, who struggled with his weight, gave up dancing in favor

of choreography. He also oversaw business details as the director of his ambitious dance company. By 1968 the company had received funding from private and public organizations but still had money problems, even as it brought modern dance to audiences around the world. Ailey also had the leading African American soloist (a person who performs by oneself) of modern dance, Judith Jamison (1944-). Having employed Asian and white dancers since the mid-1960s, Ailey had also integrated (included people of different races) his company. In 1969 the company moved to Brooklyn, New York, as the resident dance company of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, an arts center with three theaters.

In the early 1960s the company performed in Southeast Asia and Australia as part of an international cultural program set up by President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963). Later the company traveled to Brazil, Europe, and West Africa. Ailey also choreographed dances for other companies, including Feast of Ashes for the Joffrey Ballet and Anthony and Cleopatra for the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York City. Ailey worked on projects with other artists, including one with Duke Ellington for the American Ballet Theater. For Ailey the decade peaked with the performance of Masekela Language, a dance based on the music of Hugh Masekela, a black South African trumpeter who lived in exile for speaking out against apartheid (South Africa's policy of separation based on race).

Ailey's Cry

By the late 1970s Ailey's company was one of America's most popular dance troupes. Its members continued touring around the world, with U.S. State Department backing. They were the first modern dancers to visit the former Soviet Union since the 1920s. In 1971 Ailey's company was asked to return to the City Center Theater in New York City after a performance featured Ailey's celebrated solo, Cry. Danced by Judith Jamison, she made it one of the troupe's best known pieces.

Dedicated to "all black women everywhere-especially our mothers," the piece depicts the struggles of different generations of black American women. It begins with the unwrapping of a long white scarf that becomes many things during the course of the dance, and ends with an expression of belief and happiness danced to the late 1960s song, "Right On, Be Free." Of this and of all his works Ailey told John Gruen in The Private World of Ballet, "I am trying to express something that I feel about people, life, the human spirit, the beauty of things...."

Later years

Ailey suffered a breakdown in 1980 that put him in the hospital for several weeks. At the time he had lost a close friend, was going through a midlife crisis, and was experiencing money problems. Still, he continued to work, and his reputation as a founding father of modern dance grew during the decade.

Ailey received many honors for his choreography, including a Dance magazine award in 1975; the Springarn Medal, given to him by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1979; and the Capezio Award that same year. In 1988 he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors prize. Ailey died of a blood disorder on December 1, 1989. Thousands of people flocked to the memorial service held for him at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

For More Information

Ailey, Alvin, with A. Peter Bailey. Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1995.

Dunning, Jennifer. Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996.

Probosz, Kathilyn Solomon. Alvin Ailey, Jr. New York: Bantam Books, 1991.

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Born: January 5, 1931 Rogers, Texas Died: December 1, 1989 New York, New York African American dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and won international fame as both a dancer and choreographer, a creator and arranger of dance performances. Alvin Ailey Jr.

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George Balanchine

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Quick Facts

Name

George Balanchine

Birth Date

January 22, 1904

Death Date

April 30, 1983

Education

Mariinsky Theatre, Petrograd State Conservatory of Music, Imperial School of Ballet, Soviet State School of Ballet

Place of Birth

St. Petersburg, Russia

Place of Death

New York, New York

AKA

George Balanchine

Georgy Balanchine

Full Name

Georgy Melitonovich Balanchivadze

George Balanchine was a ballet choreographer who co-founded and served as artistic director of the New York City Ballet.

Who Was George Balanchine?

George Balanchine studied ballet and music in Russia before making his way to the United States. He gained notoriety as a young choreographer and co-founded the American Ballet. Balanchine was the co-founder, artistic director and chief choreographer of the New York City Ballet, and nearly every ballet company in the world has performed his work.

Early Life

Georgy Melitonovich Balanchivadze was born on January 22, 1904, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The son of a composer, Balanchine had a robust understanding of music. In 1914, he enrolled at the Mariinsky Theatre's ballet school. He graduated in 1921 and subsequently attended the Petrograd State Conservatory of Music, leaving the conservatory after three years.

In 1922, Balanchine married a 15-year-old ballet student named Tamara Gevergeyeva. This was the first of four marriages to dancers, and for each of his wives, Balanchine would make a ballet.

In 1924, Balanchine was invited to tour Germany as part of the Soviet State Dancers. A year later, the young choreographer joined Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. (His birth name, Balanchivadze, was shortened to Balanchine at Diaghilev's insistence.) At just 21 years old, Balanchine took over as choreographer for the group, one of the most renowned ballet companies in the world.

Life in America: 'The Nutcracker'

After the Ballet Russes collapsed, Balanchine created the company Les Ballets in 1933. Following a performance, American dance aficionado Lincoln Kirstein approached Balanchine about collaboration and the two began a 50-year creative partnership, co-founding the School of American Ballet in 1934. The following year, the professional company known as the American Ballet emerged, becoming the official company of New York's Metropolitan Opera until 1936.

In 1946, Kirstein and Balanchine co-founded a company that would become the New York City Ballet. Balanchine served as artistic director of the company, based out of New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. He produced more than 150 works for the company, including "The Nutcracker." While money was tight, Balanchine presented the dancers in practice clothes instead of ornate costumes.

Legacy and Death

In addition to ballet, Balanchine choreographed Hollywood movies and Broadway musicals. He is known for his connection to Igor Stravinsky; Balanchine created many ballets to his work, some in collaboration with the composer. He made more than 465 works, which have been performed by nearly every ballet company in the world.

Balanchine created plotless ballets, where the dancing upstaged glitz and storytelling. His work never featured a star, as he believed the performance should outshine the individual. He is credited with developing the neo-classical style distinct to the 20th century. Balanchine served as the artistic director of the New York City Ballet until his death, on April 30, 1983, in New York City.

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Name George Balanchine Birth Date January 22, 1904 Death Date April 30, 1983 Education Mariinsky Theatre, Petrograd State Conservatory of Music, Imperial School of Ballet, Soviet State School of Ballet Place of Birth St.