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Outlook: Harlem's Legendary Ballet Dancer

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Arthur Mitchell at the White House in 2006 with dancers from his Dance Theatre of Harlem (Ron Sachs-POOL/Getty Images)

24/01/2018 GMT

Harlem's Legendary Ballet Dancer

BBC World Service - Outlook, Harlem's Legendary Ballet Dancer

Arthur Mitchell started the Dance Theatre of Harlem to train black ballet dancers

Arthur Mitchell, the pioneering African-American dancer who started the Dance Theatre of Harlem to train black ballet dancers

Arthur Mitchell is the pioneering African-American ballet dancer who grew up in poverty in New York City, then danced his way onto the most prestigious stages in the world. After the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, he returned to his roots to found the Dance Theatre of Harlem and train a new generation of black dancers.

In 2012 at the age of 17, Michaela DePrince became the youngest dancer to join the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She was born in Sierra Leone and lost both her parents during that country's brutal and bloody civil war and had to live in an orphanage. She tells Matthew Bannister how she overcame violence and abuse to fulfil her dream of becoming a ballerina. 

In rural Bhutan there is a controversial practice known as 'night hunting'. It is a custom that allows a man to break into a woman's bedroom at night and ask her for sex. If the woman agrees the man can stay the night and their sexual liaison may or may not lead to marriage. In the villages where it still goes on, there is a debate as to whether this traditional custom should be stopped. Outlook's Candida Beveridge has been to Bhutan to investigate.

Rwandan Eric Murangwa has just been given one of the UK's highest civic awards - Member of the British Empire or MBE. It was for his work to promote reconciliation and education following the 1994 Rwandan genocide. During the conflict an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the space of 100 days. Eric, a Tutsi and rising football star, survived the tragedy.

(Photo: Arthur Mitchell at the White House in 2006 with some of his dancers from the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Credit: Ron Sachs/Getty Images)

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