WHO WE ARE Norma's Academy of Dance is Metro Atlanta’s longest-standing African American founded studio. Established in 1972 by the late Norma B. Mitchell, the Academy served as a haven for young African American artists to train and learn a multiplicity of genres in the arts. We are a technique based studio offering a well-balanced, comprehensive dance education in Ballet, Hip Hop, Jazz, Modern, Pointe, Tap, and more to students ages three and up. After Ms. Mitchell’s untimely death in 1985, her daughter, Djana Bell, took the reins and carried the torch of her mother’s legacy and has been Artistic Director of the Academy for 35 years.

 

WHAT WE DO We provide a rigorous, technique-based training foundation for girls and boys in Metro Atlanta and its surrounding areas. Our goal is to mold and shape children into confident, creative, responsible, and technically adept, young women and men in a supportive, non-threatening environment. 

 

OUR IMPACT We provide a sustainable pipeline of budding artists in the mainstream of the arts to prepare for the collegiate experience, Broadway, or a professional career filled with discipline and confidence. We are responsible for more than a thousand artists who have matriculated at Norma’s Academy of Dance and have gone on to dance on Broadway, tour the world internationally with Michael Jackson, land major parts in Hamilton, and a host of other opportunities all because of Norma’s Academy of Dance’s unprecedented impact on their artistic foundation.