Former NC Dance Theatre dancer and current staff member featured in The HistoryMakers, an African American history archive

Charlotte, N.C. (July 11, 2007) – Ayisha McMillan, a former North Carolina Dance Theatre (NC Dance Theatre) dancer and current marketing staff member, was selected to have her story included in The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history project.

The HistoryMakers is a non-profit organization committed to preserving, developing and providing easy access to an internationally recognized archival collection of African American video oral histories. Started in 1999, The HistoryMakers archive currently has a collection of over 1,400 interviews. The archive is meant to illustrate the importance of American history as told by the first person and to showcase the accomplishments of the individual African American across a variety of disciplines. The HistoryMakers archive is located in Chicago, and is a special collection of the Illinois State Library System.

McMillan began her dance training in Oak Park, Ill., with Stephanie Clemens and MOMENTA dance company. She studied with Maria Tallchief's School of Chicago City Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet Artistic Director Asaf Messerer, instructor Mikhail Messerer, Homer Hans Bryant's Bryant Ballet, and Houston Ballet Academy's Clara Cravey and Steve Brule. Houston Ballet Academy awarded her the Michael Wasmund award for Artistic Excellence. McMillan danced professionally for six seasons with Houston Ballet and for five seasons with NC Dance Theatre. McMillan's performance career has included featured roles in Doris Humphrey's Soaring, Lila York's Rapture, George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux's Peter Pan as Tinker Bell.  

McMillan was notified in January that she had been selected to be profiled as part of The HistoryMakers, and her interview was taped mid-June. “It is an honor for me to be participating in this project,” said McMillan. “I attended the first HistoryMakers interview forum in Chicago in 2000. In this program, An Evening With Harry Belafonte, actor and activist Danny Glover conducted a live interview with Harry Belafonte. It was fantastic, and the audience was enthralled. For me to be counted among African Americans like Mr. Belafonte, as someone who has made notable achievements, is thrilling!”

The HistoryMakers slogan is “stories of success against the odds, of achievement in the face of adversity, and in all cases…stories of inspiration.” When asked how this statement applied to her McMillan said, “I have been one of relatively few Black women in the world to find success in the field of classical ballet. Earl Calloway, legendary arts editor of the Chicago Defender, once noted in his writing that during my career, I was able to dance on stages in places where earlier Black ballerinas like Janet Collins were denied entry a mere generation ago. Not only this, but I have been fortunate enough to perform as part of ballet companies on stages as far-reaching as London and Hong Kong.”

During the interview, conducted at McMillan’s home by Washington, D.C., area journalist Cheryl Butler, McMillan was asked to discuss her family history as far back as she could gather information. “I shared photos of my maternal grandmother’s parents, who were Choctaw Freedmen and lived in Oklahoma while it was still an Indian Territory. I was also able to share about my paternal grandfather’s education and career as a mechanical engineer,” recounted McMillan.

McMillan retired from her career as a professional dancer in May 2007 and made a career transition into the fields of marketing and communications. She is currently the patron relations associate at NC Dance Theatre.

To learn more about The HistoryMakers project visit thehistorymakers.com. To learn more about North Carolina Dance Theatre visit ncdance.org