The world-renowned "Philadanco! The Philadelphia Dance Company" will be in Charlotte for a one-night performance on May 28 at the Knight Theater.
It's the first local show for the mostly African American company.
Philadanco! was founded by Joan Myers Brown, who turns 94 this year and still has a strong presence with the company. Brown is the honorary chairperson for the International Association of Blacks in Dance and has received numerous awards over her career, including the National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2012. Additionally, she was honored as a Master of African American Choreography in 2005 by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. WFAE’s Gwendolyn Glenn talked with Brown about dance and more.
Gwendolyn Glenn: Philadanco! dancers perform to different styles of music to mesh with the ballet, modern and African dance forms they execute. It also reflects the moods of the electrifying and intense pieces they present on stage — centered around identity, social justice and cultural themes.
In 1970, Joan Myers Brown, whose father is from Wadesboro, North Carolina, founded Philadanco! to give Black dancers, locked out of majority dance companies, a place to perform professionally.
Brown says she makes sure the dancers she trains are versatile in all dance styles.
Joan Myers Brown: Because I think when my dancers look for a job and move on, I said whatever they ask you, 'Can you do ...?', you can say, yeah, I can do that. So you don't have to get turned down for the coming jobs.
Glenn: How many dancers are in your company?
Myers Brown: Right now, we have 18 active dancers and two apprentices.
Glenn: You will turn 94 this year, on Christmas Day, so you’ve been doing this for a long time. How many dancers have you trained?
Myers Brown: Well, you know, I have a dancing school. In fact, I have two dancing school. I have between 600-800 kids in my schools a year. The last count we had, about 4,000 that went through our program here. I try to be very demanding in all aspects of my training.
Glenn: Well, let me ask you this, I've seen pictures of you. And when you said you're very demanding, I’ve seen one photo where you had that look on your face — that was like wow!
Myers Brown: That's that grandma look that says you gotta get it right, girl.
Glenn: Get it right. That's exactly what you looked like. So, do you still watch rehearsals and the practices?
Myers Brown: Well, I come into the office at 9 in the morning, do the office work and the dance school starts at 4 (p.m.). And then the dance company comes in at 7 (p.m.) and I leave at 11 (p.m.), making sure everybody does everything right.
But I would rather be here trying to keep what I do going in the way I want it to, rather than sitting in an old folks home playing bingo. So, I'm very healthy, I don’t have any pains and I take no medicine. So I'm still at it.
Glenn: That's a 14-hour day.
Myers Brown: Yeah, that's what they tell me. I do it seven days a week.
Glenn: So what keeps you going? What keeps you still having that love for Philadanco!, and the school and to be there every day?
Myers Brown: I think actually that with the dancing school, I see a young kid, say 4 or 5 years old and they say, ‘I can't wait to grow up so I can be with Philadanco!,’ or ‘I love to dance’ — and that makes you want to keep doing it, because they are generations that are coming on. And I make the people who teach for me have the same enthusiasm and commitment to things that I have.
Glenn: And you mentioned that you want to make sure that when your dancers leave your company, that they can go anywhere. [And] they can do all styles of dancing. Who are some of your dancers that have gone on to other major dance companies?
Myers Brown: Well, Anthony Burrell choreographed for Beyoncé and for Mariah Carey. Others, most of them ended up going to the [Alvin] Ailey company. Tommie-Waheed Evans, who moved here from California to be in my company, ended up at The Joyce Theater in New York. Danni Gee, who was in my company, is the program director for The Joyce Theater. Choreographers that I hired include George Faison.
Glenn: And tell people who haven't heard of Faison who he is.
Myers Brown: He was the original choreographer for the original Black "Wiz."
Glenn: For which he made history in 1975 when he became the first African American to win a Tony Award for best choreography for “The Wiz.” Well, tell me a little about you. Where did you grow up, and when did you become interested in dance?
Myers Brown: I grew up in Philadelphia, and my mother was part of what they called the Philadelphia society. They put their little girls into dancing school and they took piano. So, my mother did put me in dancing school, but I got out of dancing school when I lost my shoes the first week. My mom is, ‘I ain’t buying no more.’ But when I got to high school, my gym teacher encouraged me to dance because she saw me in her classes. So, I really got hooked on dance trying to prove that I could do it by being the only Black girl in the ballet club.
And it just kept going from there. And I'm still trying to prove to the powers that be that the Black girls — just give them the opportunity. And boys, too.
Even today, this is the first time in 35 years they've hired a Black girl at the Philadelphia Ballet Company. So, opportunities and access haven't changed.
Glenn: What companies did you dance for? And did you do it professionally?
Myers Brown: I danced professionally, but guess what? I ended up dancing at nightclubs behind Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Cab Calloway.
There was a particular club in Atlantic City — the Club Harlem. I was a choreographer. And I worked at the Chitlin' Circuit. But I was always the girl they put on ballet slippers and pointe shoes. I was always a feature dancer, but I never got to be that ballet dancer I wanted to be. So that's why I say it's important that I still make sure there are places for girls like me who want to be what I wanted to be.
Glenn: And did you get turned down a lot from the majority white ballet companies?
Myers Brown: Well, actually, you talking about 1949 and 1950. And there were no white companies hiring nobody Black. You couldn't even go to a white school. So, I was going to a (dance) school of two women that had learned the same way I learned — from somebody Black.
Glenn: Well, you will be in Charlotte. Tell me about some of the pieces that will be performed here by Philadanco!
Myers Brown: The repertory I usually try to do is a repertory that is representative of us as a people. One of my choreographers, Ray Mercer, did a piece that is strictly modern. And "Movement for Five" is a story by one of my former dancers about the five men who were falsely accused in Central Park [and falsely convicted of the rape and assault of Trisha Meili in Central Park in 1989], specifically talking about how those young men felt about being falsely accused and the women that supported them.
Glenn: What's next for you? Will you ever retire?
Myers Brown: Eventually I'm going to have to. But I'm fortunate that my daughter has stepped up to the plate. And she works beside me and tells me, ‘Mom, I got this.' My artistic director has been with me for 44 years. She danced in the company for 20-something years. So I feel that it would be safe to stay home — but most of the time they gotta ask me a question.
Glenn: And what do you want the legacy for the company to be?
Myers Brown: I hope that what we do is remembered as being good work — and that the opportunities will continue for youngsters that have dreams of being dancers.
Glenn: Brown says she lost a young dancer to murder in New York City last year. She established a scholarship in his name to provide assistance to those who cannot afford to train as a dancer with a better chance of making it professionally.
You can see Philadanco! on May 28 at the Knight Theater. They're also holding a masterclass on May 27 at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture. The company kicks off a European tour in late September.
