Balanchine’s Mel Tomlinson

Mel A. Tomlinson, a ballet dancer of powerful, regal demeanor and one of the few performers to star with three major companies — Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and New York City Ballet — reposed on February 5th in Huntersville, N.C, about 150 miles from his birthplace in Raleigh. He was 65.

Twenty years ago he had had AIDS and was in and out of the hospital for three years before eventually getting admitted to the House of Mercy AIDS hospice in Belmont, N.C., in 1998: he made a full recovery. While there he became a phlebotomist and earned a doctorate in theology. Until his hospitalization, just before Christmas 2018, he delivered services using American Sign Language at St. Paul Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.

“It was like watching him dance,” Ms. Claudia Folts a long time friend who collaborated with Mr. Tomlinson on his 2018 memoir, “Beyond My Dreams,” said. “It was all his hands and his face, and it was just beautiful. It was like he got to perform every week.”

Mel got a unicycle for a Christmas gift from Santa when he was 9 and loved it. He was one of six siblings, and his parents did not have the money to spare on dance lessons, so Mel had neither a formal training in acrobatics or gymnastics, but was the sports mascot of his high school. A local ballet teacher saw one of his halftime performances and offered him free classes that he gladly accepted.

Choreographer Agnes George de Mille (her uncle was film director Cecil B.) spotted him but then turned him down stating that there was no place in her repertoire for a black dancer. Undettered Mel refused to accept that defeat, a constant theme in his life for he was a locomotive pattern, , and continued auditioning. Eventually, Miss de Mille hired him for her Heritage Dance Theater.

Chart Highlights:

• Mr. Tomlinson has Mars in Scorpio, creative fulfillment, in the ninth house of higher calling and travel.
• He was a Bucket with a Jupiter at 18 Gemini 14, handle, in the fourth house showing his he always relied on two talents to make his opportunities.
  • As a dancer it was his strong athletic grace and perserverance; later as a lay minister it was devotion to his calling and desire to be an example of that perserverance over prejudice, lack of established training, bad health.
• Mars + Saturn are sextile the Capricorn preponderance of the eleventh house.
  • This shows the great strides he made with the public because of his ability to overcome preconceived notions of ballet stars.
• His ascendant at 13 Aquarius is a tad wide for Pluto knocking on the seventh house, but if we consider it, we see his transformative ability of marrying his personality with his various jobs supports the above.
• Jupiter in Gemini in the fourth suggests that he came from a large family and really loved the dynamic of it.
  • It is sextile his Pluto and thus highlights another transformation he made was making coworkers friends i.e. Ms. Folts.
• His Moon is on the eleventh house cusp shows his career was tied to how well he was publicly received. This is partile his Pluto, a modern planet ruled by Mars which is in its rulership and noted above.
  • Thus the Moon tapped into Pluto to help Mel transform his dreams into reality.
• While his ascendant is in Aquarius, its ruler is Uranus and in Cancer in the fifth, which is in its detriment.
  • When this came to pass that his dancing life was over for his legs gave out from illness (Sagitarrius rules the legs), his hands (ruled by Cancer) became a new form of dance for him shown by the Christmas Advent service in Sign Language.
  • Trine his Mars and Saturn in the ninth house, it worked for him on several levels and showed his ability to conquer whatever hurdle life threw at him with great equanimity. (Jupiter always bestows a positive and magnamious outlook).
• Mr. Tomlinson’s Neptune (his obligation to self) is in Libra which rules the kidneys and pancreas. Found in the eighth house of death and things outgoing it is squared Uranus (making his career income erratic) in the fifth.
  • Then it makes another aspect to the stellium in the eleventh suggesting problems with waste disposal.
    • True enough, with Neptune opposite the TransNeptunian planet Hades at Taurus 02 (out of quadrature) and square Pluto highlighted his health problem: Mr. Tomlinson died of pancreatic cancer.
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Notes: This chart was updated & checked on 2 September 2026.