Billy Wilson and Joan Myers Brown
Billy Wilson’s lifelong friend and colleague Joan Myers Brown was trained first by Essie Marie Dorsey, and later was a student at the Sydney Marion School of Dance of Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet. After the separation and disbanding of the dance company, Myers Brown remained with King alongside a few peers, one of whom was Billy Wilson. Brown and Wilson, meeting when Wilson was 14 or 15 and separating when Wilson made his Broadway debut at 19, danced together for around 5 years. Wilson was able to get classes with Anthony Tudor despite the school only allowing one Black dancer, who was Joan Myers Brown at the time. Myers Brown went on to found Philadanco in 1970, a Philadelphia based dance school that is the United States’ largest predominantly African American modern dance company. After returning from Europe, Wilson choreographed many ballets specifically for Philadanco, and remained Brown’s close friend. She describes him as an old soul with a magnetic smile. He became “everyone’s little brother… everyone’s date for the prom.”
Sources:
Joan Myers Brown, MoBBallet
Brown, MoBBallet
More about Joan Myers Brown
Joan Myers Brown is affectionately referred to as “Aunt Joan” because she feels like home, embodying the beautiful complexity of the feeling of curling into the safety of a warm embrace and the disciplined requirement of standing up straight concomitantly. She was born in 1931 to Nellie Lewis, a nuclear scientist, and Julius Myers, a chef and restaurateur on Christmas Day. She grew up in the Gray’s Ferry section of West Philadelphia that was racially mixed; however it slowly became an all Black working class neighborhood with white flight. She began dancing under Essie Marie Dorsey, and then transitioned to study under Sydney King at the Sydney Marion School of Dance with Marion Cuyjet. When the pair separated, she left with King, continuing her training at the Sydney School of Dance. Later in life, in 1970, she founded her own dance company in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Dance Company, or Philadanco. A staple in the city’s art community for almost 60 years, it has been, and continues to be a nucleus for families of color. Art, education, history, and hygiene are at the root of the school. See more.
Source:
Ethan Richmond
