Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrian Blake Mitchell.
Hi Adrian Blake, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Texas to a family very involved in sports. I was raised by a single mother, and we moved around a lot for her work. After attempting (unsuccessfully) every sport in my youth, my mother put me in dance classes, starting with Jazz and Hip-Hop. We were living in Santa Cruz at the time, and a traveling performance of the Nutcracker came into town. I think it was called Moscow’s Great Russian Nutcracker or something like that. I wanted to dance as one of the party children, but it required me to take ballet classes. After enrolling in ballet, I stopped the other dance styles and fell in love with the art form. I took dance classes periodically for the next few years, but due to moving and also getting a lot of grief at school. I took very few classes and many breaks from my training. In my early teens, I had a wake-up call that If I wanted any chance to become a professional dancer, I would have to start to take it much more seriously. That’s when I started training at Westside School of Ballet under the direction of Yvonne Mounsey. At the same time, I began working with Yuri Grigoriev at his ballet school in Venice. Both of these two incredible teachers are no longer with us, but they left a deep imprint on me as an artist, educator and leader.
After this, I moved away to train at a full-time program, eventually landing at the Ellison Ballet Professional Training Program. This was another catalyst in my training, as it is where I got my most formative training and developed a deep love and respect for classical ballet. The director, Edward Ellison trained us in the classical Russian style, known as the Vaganova technique and pushed us as a class to devote ourselves fully to the art form. As I was graduating from Ellison, I was given an incredible opportunity to go to perform in Russia by a legendary ballet director, Oleg Vinogradov, who was the Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre (formerly known as the Kirov). At the end of my trip, I was invited to join the graduating class of the Vaganova Academy, a 285-year-old institution, where I would be the first Black graduate.
After completing my training at the Vaganova Academy, I joined the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, where I eventually became a Demi-soloist, and performed many soloist and principal roles in the classical and contemporary repertoire and partnered some of the world’s most prominent ballerinas. After seven seasons with the company in February of 2022, my wife and I left Russia at the start of the war in Ukraine. I was fortunate to be welcomed back to my alma mater, where I now serve as the Associate Executive Director at Westside School of Ballet.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth is definitely not the adjective that I would use! Ballet is incredibly expensive and being raised by a single mother, finances always played a part in how I chose my teachers, training and most aspects of my development. Also, I got a later start than most dancers, with my pre-professional training beginning at 13. For a professional career that ends before 40, that’s considered a late start. There have been injuries and letdowns, but overall it got me to where I am now, for which I’m incredibly grateful.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m incredibly proud to be considered one of the leaders in the efforts to make Ballet a more diverse, accessible and inclusive art form. I am a co-founder and the Artistic Director of Dance in Color, A nonprofit organization which works to create a more inclusive professional dance industry. Primarily we provide scholarships to bipoc youth from underserved communities, and we have facilitated over $50,000 dollars worth of scholarships. I also lead the diversity efforts at Westside Ballet. Where we just held our second annual Dance to Dreams event, where on July 5,6 and 7 we provided free dance classes to children from underserved communities.
As a leader in the arts, I’m focusing now on dance education and programming, which is where I hope to leave my mark, creating a strong and thriving ballet industry here in LA.
Contact Info:
- Website: westsideballet.com/dancetodreams
- Instagram: adrianblakemitchell
- Facebook: Facebook.com/westsideballet
- Yelp: yelp.com/biz/westside-school-of-ballet-santa-monica
Image Credits
(1) Eric Williams (1);Chris Mortenson (2); Nikolai Krusser (3); Jack Devant (4).
