This event is open to members of The University Seminars community only. Registration is required. TANNENBAUM LECTURE "Arthur Mitchell: The Extraordinary Life of Harlem's Ballet Visionary" Lynn Garafola Professor Emerita of Dance at Barnard College Born in 1934 to parents who came to Harlem during the Great Migration, Arthur Mitchell fell in love with ballet as a teenager and against all odds became New York City Ballet's first African American star. Like Jackie Robinson and other civil rights heroes, Mitchell stood on the front line of integration, even as he left a lasting mark on ballets such as Agon and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by George Balanchine that defined a new era in American dance. Outraged by the assassination of Martin Luther King at the height of the Black Arts Movement, in 1969 Mitchell founded Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first enduring majority-Black company. Under Mitchell's inspired direction, DTH quickly became a racial and artistic change-maker, enabling large numbers of Black dancers to pursue a professional career in ballet for the first time, even as the company became the incubator of ballets that spoke directly to the Black experience. Mitchell seldom spoke of the racism he had encountered, his closeted […]