Michel, Artur

German-born dance critic and historian Artur Ferdinand Michel (1883-1946) was a journalist and scholar who immigrated to the United States after the Nazi rise to power, settling in New York, where he became a reviewer for the German-language newspaper Aufbau and wrote articles that appeared in Dance Magazine and other publications.

He pursued a career in journalism, becoming an editor and critic for Berlin's Vossische Zeitung (1922-1934), where he covered the vibrant German dance scene. In addition to his newspaper work and interest in contemporary dance, Michel traveled extensively in Europe between 1920 and 1936, studying art, folk dance, and ballet history in France, Italy, Spain, and Austria. Michel sought to leave Germany during the mid-1930s and arrived in New York in June 1941, where he found work writing dance and theater reviews for Aufbau, which served the city's German Jewish population. Through his position on the newspaper, and as a result of reconnecting with fellow émigrés, such as Hanya Holm, he was able to familiarize himself with many developments in American dance. In late 1942, the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars awarded Michel a twelve-month fellowship to complete work on a book, Der Tanz auf der Bühne: Geschichte des Theatertanzes seit der Renaissance (History of the Theatre Dance from the Renaissance to the Present Day), that he had begun in Germany. Although he initially was unsuccessful in finding a publisher for the finished work, Michel, who had been instrumental in organizing an American effort to honor Mary Wigman on her sixtieth birthday, seemed well on his way to establishing himself within the American dance community before his sudden death in 1946.

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