In-School Performances

PHILADANCO

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“HIGH-SPEED WONDERS”
Los Angeles Times
“ELECTRIFYING: SURE FERVENT, BEAUTIFULLY ACCOMPLISHED”
Miami Herald
“PHILADANCO'S DANCERS ARE A MIRACLE OF SKILL AND ENERGY. THE COMPANY HAS BUILT ITS SUCCESS ON THE ABILITY TO DO EVERYTHING”
Dance Magazine
Performance Highlights

05.25.13
Matt Haimovitz/Christopher O’Riley
Tannery Pond Concerts
New Lebanon, NY

05.29.13
Christopher O’Riley
Yoshi's 
San Francisco, CA 

06.01.13
Frank Ferrante in [An Evening with Groucho]
State Theatre, Culpepper, VA 

Biography

Artistic Director – Joan Myers Brown

Joan Myers Brown is the founder of The Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO) and The Philadelphia School of Dance Arts. She serves as honorary chairperson for the International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD), an organization she established in 1991. She also founded the International Conference of Black Dance Companies in 1988. She is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, which bestowed upon her an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts; is a member of the dance faculty at Howard University in Washington, DC; and has been awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. Listed in Who's Who in America and described as an "innovator and communicator," Ms. Brown has made significant contributions to the national and international arts communities.

Regionally and nationally, Ms. Brown has served a broad range of organizations, including the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project; the United States Information Agency; Arts America; the National Endowment for the Arts; the state arts councils of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Nevada, and Ohio; and the National Forum for Female Executives. Locally, she has been a part of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; the Minority Arts Resource Council, Inc.; the Philadelphia Mayor's Cultural Advisory Council; the Philadelphia Dance Alliance; the Women's Heritage Society; and Dance/USA. Ms. Brown was appointed to the choreographer's panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Arts & Humanities Program, and served as vice president (and co-founder) of the Coalition of African American Cultural Organizations.

In 1997, Ms. Brown was honored as one of the “Dance Women: Living Legends” during a four-day series sponsored by New York-area presenters, in tribute to five African-American pioneer women who founded distinguished modern dance companies with deep roots in black communities around the country. In 2005, the Kennedy Center honored her as a Master of African American Choreography. In 2009 she received the prestigious Philadelphia Award, and November 7, 2010 was declared Joan Myers Brown Living Legacy Day. She has also received a host of other accolades throughout her lifetime, including recent awards from The Philadelphia Tribune and the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Her legacy has been documented in the 2011 publication of Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance (Palgrave), written by dance scholar and critic Brenda Dixon Gottschild, author of several books on dance.

Ms. Brown's efforts on behalf of dance excellence belie a much larger contribution to the arts and the community. She remains a tireless advocate and spokesperson and is a model of tenacity, hope, and discipline. Ms. Brown is the proud mother of daughters Marlisa, Dannielle, and Megan, and grandmother of six. It must be emphasized that Joan Myers Brown’s efforts for dance excellence are only a small part of her unparalleled contribution to society in general, and to Philadelphia in particular. She speaks out, talks back, and shows up.