Appendix 1: Joan Myers Brown — Annotated Resume
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
APPENDIX 1: JOAN MYERS BROWN — ANNOTATED RESUME Compiled by Brenda Dixon Gottschild with input from Takiyah Nur Amin and Nyama McCarthy Brown. Activities recorded through 2010. December 25, 1931: Joan, their fi rst and only child, is born to Julius and Nellie Myers at Graduate Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Joan and her parents live in Philadelphia, first at Sixteenth and Christian Streets until they move to Forty- Second and Woodland Streets in 1934/1935 and then to 4638 Paschall Avenue in 1938/1939. ( July 28, 1910: Julius Thomas Myers born in Wadesboro, North Carolina. Of seventeen siblings, he was the youngest of six of the brothers who moved to Philadelphia together around the end of the 1920s. He worked as a chef at 2601 Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Later he owned a restaurant on Forty- Second and Woodland Street near the family residence. Thereafter, he worked at the Sun Ship Yard. Julius Myers’ mother, Mariah Sturdevant passed away in her early forties; Julius Myers said she was a Jewish woman of German descent. February 23, 1915: Nellie (Lewis) Myers born in Philadelphia, her family having migrated from Virginia. She attended the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science in the 1930s and worked in the chemical research and chemical engineering department of the Arcos Corporation for thirty years.) 1937–1942 : Joan attends the Alexander Wilson Elementary School. 1938–1939: Joan Myers trains with Sydney King at Essie Marie Dorsey’s dance school and also with King in classes held in the basement of King’s residence to strengthen a broken foot. On Saturdays she attends classes at Dorsey’s studios at the Elate Club on the second floor at Broad and South Street. (The building’s first fl oor housed the Apex Beauty School.) 1943–1946: Joan attends Shaw Junior High School. 1947–1949 : Joan attends West Philadelphia High School. 1948–1949: Joan takes ballet class and engages in ballet- related activities with Virginia Lingenfelder in the ballet club at West Philadelphia High School. (Lingenfelder was a dancer associated with the Littlefifi eld Ballet.) Performs with the ballet club at the old Philadelphia Convention Center in the “All Cities Parade.” 1948: With Lingenfelder’s encouragement, Joan takes private ballet classes, including pointe, with Eleanor Breckenridge, a Lingenfelder colleague, who was renting space at the studio of Jay Dash. (Dash does not allow blacks in his classes.) 1949: Joan continues studying privately with Eleanor Breckinridge. 262644 JOAN MYERS BRO WN & THE AU DAC I OUS HO PE 1949: Graduates from West Philadelphia High School. 1949: Trains and teaches at the Sydney- Marion School in Philadelphia. In 1949 the Sydney-Marion School (began in 1947) is discontinued. Marion Cuyjet opens the Judimar School of Dance at 1311 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Sydney King remains on Broad Street and opens the Sydney School of Dance. 1949–1951: Joan continues teaching for King and begins to study the Dunham technique with Jerome Gaymon as well as tap with Eleanor Harris at the 711 South Broad Street location. 1950: Joan takes private classes with William Sena at his Philadelphia dance studio. 1950: Joan marries Fred Johnson. T he King School presents a portion of Giselle in a recital, King plays Queen of the Wilis and Joan plays Giselle . 1950–1953: Joan performs in Philadelphia’s Christmas Cotillion Balls. 1950–1951: Joan is awarded a $100 scholarship to study in New York at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance, travels weekly to New York, and studies with Karel Shook, Walter Nicks, Maria Costosa, Syvilla Fort, and Francis Taylor. 1950–1952: Has her fi rst professional performances outside Philadelphia, arranged by Joe Noble at Izzy Bushkoff’s Creole Follies Cabaret in Delair, New Jersey. Mary Johnson [Sherrill], Juanita Jones [Feggins], Roxy Young [Bradford], Andre Pitts, and Noble dance with Joan in the Creole Follies. 1951–1952: Joan trains with Antony Tudor through the Philadelphia Ballet Guild. She is invited by Joe Noble to perform in New Jersey at The New Town Tavern. Joan’s mother, Nellie Myers leaves her marriage to Julius Myers. 1952–1955: Many bookings follow, including work at such upscale clubs as the Latin Casino in Philadelphia. 1955–1956: Joan performs and choreographs with a group of dancer friends she assem- bles under the name The Savar Dancers at Café Montmarte in Montreal, Canada. She studies ballet at the National Ballet of Canada in Montreal, Canada. T he Savar Dancers’ Canadian tour includes Toronto, Quebec City, and Valdora, Quebec. 1956–1958: The Savar Dancers perform far and wide— for example, with the Fats Domino revue at the Orchid Room of Kansas City’s House of Hills and Happiness, then carried over to continue in a revue featuring The Four Tops, a popular vocal group; at the Fiesta Club, Idlewild, Michigan; in Las Vegas, Miami, and New York, as part of Cab Calloway’s Cotton Club Revue. 1958–1960: Joan’s rich performing and choreographing career continues, with Savar Dancers’ bookings as well as her individual gigs. Among the places she performs are the Black Orchid Casino (Canada); the Deauville (Miami Beach); the Dunes (Las Vegas, with Cab Calloway), the Thunderbird (Miami Beach, with Larry Steele), the Riviera (New York City, with Larry Steele), the Apollo Theater (Harlem, with Pearl Bailey), the Masonic Auditorium (Detroit) and the Regal Theater (Chicago). 1959: Begins dancing in Atlantic City with the Larry Steele Smart Affairs Revue, backing up such performers as Sammy Davis, Billy Eckstine, and Billy Daniels. With the Savar Dancers disbanded, JB begins taking on duties as choreographer during her tenure with Steele. APPENDIX 1 262655 Clyde “Jo- Jo” Smith, Andre Pitts, and Frank Hatchett dance and partner with her during this time. Joan also performs pointe work as the featured ballerina in some of the Steele revues. 1960: Performs and tours as a dancer in Pearl Bailey’s Revue with Honi Coles and Cholly Atkins in Las Vegas and Pittsburgh,and also in Miami Beach at the Eden Roc Hotel. 1960: Opened the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts (PSDA), 137½ South Fifty- Second Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1960–1967: Continues working nights at Club Harlem and various venues in Atlantic City, while running PSDA during the day. Continued professional friendships with Cab Calloway and Sammy Davis, Jr. when they performed in Philadelphia. 1967: Joan marries Max G. Brown. February 18, 1969: Daughter Danielle L. Brown is born. 1970: JB founds The Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco), a ballet- based mod- ern contemporary dance ensemble, with her school and studio at Sixty-Third and Market Streets. April 3, 1970: Daughter Marlisa J. Brown is born. Early 1970s: Arthur Mitchell is a guest teacher at Danco. Mitchell continues to teach at Danco as a guest when Dance Theatre of Harlem has performances in Philadelphia. 1970s: Karel Shook is occasionally brought in to teach Danco company classes in Philadelphia, PA. 1972: JB and Philadanco attend National Association for Regional Ballet (now Dance America) in Wilkes- Barre, Pennsylvania. She makes fi rst acquaintance with Jeraldyne Blunden, founder of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.1 1972: “Danco on Danco” begins— a biannual concert showcasing works choreographed by the Danco professional dancers on one another and on student trainees—at the origi- nal Painted Bride Theater on South Street in Philadelphia. 1972: Philadanco’s fi rst public performance in a concert at the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts; pieces by John Hines and Harold Pierson are featured. 1972–1973: Philadanco receives fi rst funding grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; JB attends University of Pennsylvania and earns certififi cate in Arts Management. Late 1970s: Robert Garland studies with JB at PSDA. She encourages him to follow his dream to be a ballet dancer and go to the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York. He goes and later becomes assistant director of DTH. 1977: Philadanco dancers receive fi rst paychecks, thanks to a CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) grant. (CETA is the locally controlled manpower program legislated in 1973.) 1979: JB receives choreographer’s fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. 1981: She purchases the building at 9 North Preston Street in West Philadelphia. 1986: Philadanco receives National Choreographic Project Grant to commission a work by Milton Myers; Myers later becomes Philadanco’s resident choreographer. 266 JOAN MYERS BRO WN & THE AU DAC I OUS HO PE 1986: JB is co- founder of the Coalition of African American Cultural Organizations in Philadelphia. 1986 : JB receives the Theodore L. Hazlett Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts in Pennsylvania. 1986: She establishes the fi rst artists’ housing for dancers in Philadelphia. 1987 : At a dance conference in Brooklyn, New York, JB makes first acquaintance with Cleo Parker Robinson (Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Denver Colorado) and Ann Williams (Dallas Black Dance Theatre). 1988: JB founds the International Conference of Black Dance Companies and hosts the fi rst conference in Philadelphia. 1991: JB is co- founder of the International Association of Blacks in Dance, a direct off- shoot of the now- yearly conference. 1991 : Philadanco performs in Turkey (Istanbul and Ankara) 1992: Philadanco performs for the fi rst time in Germany at the Leverkusener Jazztage. 1992: First non–New Yorker BESSIE dance Award recipient is Danco’s Kim Y. Bears. 1994: Danco dancers placed on fi fty- two- week contracts. 1994: JB co-h osts a weekly local radio program, Y our Cultural Connection, with Helen Haynes, an arts administrator, presenter, and advocate. 1995: Preston Street renamed “Philadanco Way” by city of Philadelphia. 1995–current: JB serves as distinguished guest dance faculty at Howard University in Washington, D.C. 1996: Danco performs in Italy.