Mitchell's mother wanted her three girls to get good educations. Mitchell entered college at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and finished with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, but tap was not in the curriculum. She earned a full scholarship to graduate school at Indiana University with outstanding grades and entered the School of Social Services. She received her Masters degree in l976. One of the requirements of her scholarship was to give back a year of service to children. She had always wanted to move east, so she moved to Newark where she could afford to live.
While in Newark, haunted by her lost love, tap, she heard about the Henry LeTang dance studio. Drawn to his studio, when climbing the stairs, she could hear the taps and music and she began crying. "The higher I climbed, the more I cried," Mitchell recalled. The desire to dance had been hidden for too many years. When Mitchell saw Ellie LeTang and the pictures all over the studio, she knew she wanted to dance.
Henry took her into his studio and played the piano as she danced. He said she had good rhythm and magnificent spirit, but needed training. She began taking classes, practicing all the time. Henry and Ellie would leave her practicing alone in the studio, after hours. The door had an auto lock and she would stay behind. "I loved being in that studio," Mitchell said.
"Debbie was a quick study," said Henry LeTang. "The main problem I had with Debbie was getting her into heels. Those flat shoes give you a masculine look."
At the time, she worked for the Newark Pre School Council as a social worker to pay back the scholarship requirements. She took a second job working in a Child Study Team as a learning consultant to support herself and to pay for her classes. Occasionally, when she could not get to the LeTang studio, she took classes with Eleanor Harris at the Clark Center. Harris had been an assistant to LeTang. One day Harris told Mitchell that Harris could take her no further, and that Mitchell should find someone like "Honi" Coles or another of the older hoofers to take her further.
Mitchell's boyfriend found out that some hoofers were making an appearance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a Reunion of Old Hoofers. Mitchell had no idea where that was, and had no money for a concert ticket, but thought she might get into a rehearsal. She drove over about 4 am and parked on a side street. When a garbage truck entered for a pickup, she slipped in and worked her way through the halls to the auditorium. She sat on the third row and went to sleep. She woke up hearing men talking on the stage and her tap shoes fell on the floor. From the stage the men asked, "Who is there?" Mitchell answered, "It's just me." They responded, "Well come on up here."
"I was scared to death and told them that I was waiting for a bunch of old men." They said, "Well you are looking at a bunch of old men."
The "old men" were none other than "Honi" Coles, Charles Cook, Buster Brown, Phace Roberts, Lon Chaney and Fayard Nicholas. She had no idea at who she was looking. From the corner in the back she heard, "I am Leslie Gaines, but you can call me 'Bubba.'" Gaines asked her why she wasn't dancing in a regular dancing school. "They aren't doing what I hear," Mitchell stated. "What do you hear, can you sing it?" Gaines inquired. He then danced a paddle and roll, and Mitchell said she heard that rhythm. Gaines explained that she had an internal rhythm. When she told him she lived in Newark, he replied, "I will come to Newark and check out your feet." She explained that she was there in the auditorium so early because she could not afford the concert. Bubba Gains invited her to attend the performance as his guest. He arranged for her to enter through the stage door. He took her around backstage to meet everyone, including Dizzy Gillespie, before that 1980 New Year's Eve show.
"He did come to Newark to hear my feet," Mitchell said. "He came to Penn Station and I was worried about taking him to where I rehearsed. It was an abandoned building with a stage with a wood floor. The back door was open, but we had to climb over a ten foot fence. Bubba was 68. We threw our dance bags over and he climbed that fence quicker than me."
She started dancing and Gaines never looked at her. She did all the Henry LeTang steps and exercises. He commented, "You've got good feet and the left is stronger than the right," Gaines said. "Are you left handed? It is unusual and clean as hell. Keep on dancing." He then reached in his bag and pulled out a jump rope. "Can you do a time step and jump rope at the same time, but jump it backwards?" She did not miss a beat. He explained that at one time he was a member of "The Three Dukes" with Pie Russell and Will "Hutch" Hutchinson, and that Hutch was the gifted one who had originated the jump rope routine but died at a young age. Gaines continued, "When I saw you, I saw Hutch again, but he didn't tell me he was coming back as a little girl. He danced so effortless like you."
Mitchell still has the rope and it has taken her everywhere. "In the 'Cotton Club' Francis Ford Coppola wanted it at the end of the movie. I auditioned with it for 'Black and Blue,' but it was not used." She danced as a member of The Rhythm Queens in the movie "Cotton Club," and the footage never made it in the movie, but the jump rope did. She continued her classes with Gaines for three years at Fazils, a New York rehearsal studio. "I am embarrassed" she said one day. "How am I ever going to repay you?"
"I don't want money," he said, "Someday when some child will look at you when you help them, you will have paid me in full."
Mitchell danced with Germaine Goodson and Rashmalla Combo as one of the three Rhythm Queen members in Paris, in "Black and Blue." When Rashmalla Combo dropped out, Goodson and Mitchell stayed together as a duo for 20 years. Among other memorable events, they spent five years touring the world with Cab Callaway, who taught them how to approach the stage and many other things.
Mitchell started the New Jersey Tap Ensemble because she wanted tap dancers to learn the craft of tap as the hoofers had taught her, and to be able to afford it. "I had the tools to pass it on," she declared.
When she started the New Jersey Tap Ensemble, she didn't realize that she was starting a business. But she became a CEO searching for funding and writing grant applications. Her husband, whom she met in 1983 in the social work field, assisted in whatever she needed. "He paid for so much and would help supplement my income," Mitchell fondly recalls. The company was founded and her husband eventually retired and came on with the Ensemble as its business manager.
The New Jersey Tap Ensemble has two groups. The First Company, consisting of 14 adult dancers age 18 or older, tours. The Young Talented Tappers "YTT" Company is composed of dancers from 12 to 17 years old. Their major sponsors are the State Arts Council, the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
Mitchell wanted the dancers to have live music, so she asked the conductor of "Black and Blue," Leonard Oxley to assist her with the music. "I wanted our dancers to have the best," she recalled. "I knew he lived in Jersey, so I just asked him. From that day he has worked with me. I pay him miniscule, but he doesn't care. He has done so many charts and arrangements for us."
Deborah Mitchell's list of former members of her "First Company" of the New Jersey Tap Ensemble reads like a Who's Who of Tap. Maurice Chestnut, who began dancing as a child and later danced in "Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk" and "Improvography" with Savion Glover, received the "Top Dog "award at the Apollo Theatre. He describes Mitchell as "mother, coach and teacher and not only has a dance company, but a Rhythm Tap Institution."
Karen Callaway Williams was the First Company's first Dance Captain. She has since danced on Broadway in "Play On," "Riverdance," and other shows. Paris Mann, also an original member, has danced in "Black and Blue," "Riverdance," and "Wild Woman Blues."
Other First Company members carry Mitchell's influence on in their own careers. Mike Minery has danced in "The Joint is Jumpin'" at the New York Supper Club and in "Break the Floor." Minery credits Mitchell with making him a true performer. "From Deborah Mitchell I learned stage presence," Minery stated. "She will make a flap ball change (a simple step) look like a million dollars and get applause." Former Company member Jason Janas dances with Acia Gray's Tapestry in Austin, Texas, while Dan Clemente toured with Dein Perry's "Tap Dogs."
Germaine Goodson, Mitchell's Rhythm Queens partner, continues her career performing and teaching in New York, and was also on Broadway in "Play On." Goodson says that she and Deborah are as close as sisters. "In faith, we are sisters. I call her 'Little Moses' because of her strong will and determination and her faith in God. She is the rock in my life personally and in career. Her dreams are coming true."
Mitchell, the "late starter," continues to advance the art and artists of tap. Currently, she is working on a major new work with live music that would employ many tap dancers. There are many other ideas to come. She is still climbing those fences to do all she can for tap. |
