“Delores Browne is one of our living legends in dance... but first [to me], she was just the teacher who fixed my positions and insisted on carriage. Miss Browne taught me a lot about ballet, and only later did I learn about her significant role in our history.
According to Lisa Kraus, who got a grant and studied Miss Browne’s career, “If you were lucky enough to have seen Delores Browne dancing the Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty on tour in Europe with the New York Negro Ballet in 1957, or in Louis Johnson’s First Sin (1957), or in parts created for her by Alvin Ailey, Geoffrey Holder, Anthony Tudor, and other eminent choreographers, you wouldn’t need to be told that Delores Browne was a great black ballerina. For the rest of us, though, it might be news. Gifted for dance, Miss Browne today “glows with energy”. She celebrates her fortieth year as a ballet mistress with Philadanco, the Philadelphia Dance Company led by Joan Myers Brown.
She was a teacher at the Alvin Ailey School in New York in the early 1980s. When I first met Miss Browne. Always impeccably dressed in leotard, tights, ballet shoes and chiffon skirt, she exuded the elegance we were trying to achieve. There were three things I remember about her. First, she insisted we carry ourselves as though we had high ruffled collars about our necks and upper chests. The second was that when things got really fast, she said, she would put on her pointe shoes! And thirdly, she reminded us that even though we strive to get better every day, there are some plateaus in our development, so we should not be discouraged. Well, these things stayed with me. It was wonderful to have finally caught up with her by phone recently.”
(This excerpt is from a feature in the program from the SDDF in 2013 by Loris.)
Today as Loris reflects on her passing yesterday morning, he expressed these thoughts:
“I always called her Miss. Browne.“ “I received a donation from her for BDC this year. She had the wherewithal to do it early!” “It was indeed an honor that she graced my life!”