As the professional dance world tries to branch out, an NJ dancer says she’s ready to soar

Cecilia Mitchell was just 3 years old when she started taking dance lessons in her hometown of Montclair.

Now 22 and a recent graduate of Stockton University with a degree in dance, her childhood passion is turning into a career. She is versatile in modern, ballet, contemporary, jazz, hip-hop, improvisation and more.

“I like to say dancing is what gets me up in the morning,” said Mitchell, a permanent resident of Montclair.

A middle child of immigrants from the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, Mitchell began her career as many in the dance industry highlighted the lack of diversity in the profession. Black women, in particular, have historically been underrepresented in the world of dance.

An article in the Washington Post last year about the “glass ceiling” in dance discussed inequality, while noting that the industry seems to be slowly changing. Recently, there have been four appointments of black female dancers to leadership positions in predominantly white dance companies.

The nominations — including Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, the new artistic director of Hubbard Street Chicago — contrasted with longstanding barriers facing black female dancers, according to the report. Many dancers who wanted to move into leadership positions said they usually had to choose between starting their own company or succeeding the founders of majority-black dance companies.

Mitchell, who graduated in May, said she wanted to “educate and help the younger generation of black dancers of color, let them know they can do whatever they want.”

“What should matter is the passion they have in their hearts for everything they do,” she said.

“As a minority myself, I don’t feel like we have as many opportunities as others. One of the things I learned at Stockton from my teachers, number one, is that anything is possible, anything is achievable, and everything we do should be inclusive,” Mitchell said.

It’s unclear how diverse the world of professional dance is, as most industry studies do not compile data on the race or ethnicity of those working in the field. However, a survey tracks the number of women in leadership positions.

Women artistic directors led 29% of dance companies with annual budgets of $1 million or more in 2017, according to research by Dance/USA, a national organization for professional dancers.

Sensitivity to inclusion is also changing some long-standing practices. Until fairly recently, ballet tights were almost universally pink, meant to blend with the complexion of white dancers, explained Rain Ross, associate professor of dance at Stockton.

It was an approach that inevitably left black dancers feeling left out.

“Historically, dance, like everywhere else, has been consistently racist,” Ross said.

Ross, who is white, said placing additional black women in key leadership positions will have a positive impact on the dance.

“When we put underrepresented people in these positions, they also tend to pull other people up,” Ross said.

Mitchell spent the past week in Maine at the Bates Dance Festival — a high-profile gathering of choreographers, performers and educators in its 40th year — taking three classes a day and networking.

She was taking classes in dance improvisation, theater and Afro Fusion, focusing on West African movements and contemporary dance.

She will return to her hometown studio – Sharron Miller’s Academy of Performing Arts in Montclair – where she will teach creative movement and pre-ballet to 3- and 4-year-old students.

From there, Mitchell said she’s not sure what’s next, but her ambitions include performing in different countries. She traveled to Greece, as a Stockton senior, and performed in the Early Jewish Agricultural Settlements exhibit at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle.

“I really, really want to dance professionally. I’m not sure what that means right now. I want it to be my job,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell comes from a family of athletes. Both of his brothers are professional soccer players – Ernest, 23, is with Albion San Diego, and Roald, 19, is set to join the New York Red Bulls in 6 months.

His father, Cecil, was 19 when he moved to the United States on a scholarship to Villanova University. His mother, Rolda, specialized in ‘netball’, a basketball-like sport that originated in Britain and was played in many countries that were once part of the British Empire. She was 18 when she arrived in the United States and finally met her future husband.

“My parents tried to put me on track, in football, in basketball,” Mitchell said, adding that none of the sports approached her interest in dancing.

“I found this love and passion for it,” she said.

Mitchell said dancing helped her cope with diabetes. She was diagnosed at the age of 7 with type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease in which the immune system destroys insulin-producing cells.

“It gets boring, sometimes, when the blood sugar drops, in the middle of class,” she said.

“I had to find ways not to let the disease take over me. I like to use dance as a way to monitor my diabetes and make sure my levels are at an appropriate level,” Mitchell said.

Although she’s taken up singing too — “at the moment it’s more of a hobby that I do on my own,” she explained — dancing remains her enduring constant.

“Most of us dancers, when we perform, we speak with our bodies,” she said.

“I appreciate the art of dance so much. It’s a way for people to express themselves without speaking, without verbal communication. You go to parties, you go to weddings, we dance. What does this show? it? It shows the expression. It brings good luck.”

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Rob Jennings can be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.