Leslie Browne

[piccolo]

I was watching "Baryshikov dances Balanchine" and Leslie Browne dances with him in both Apollo and Who Cares. I just loved her as a dancer. Never got to see her live, unfortunately. What happened to her? Did she retire with NYCB? Did she go to another company to dance? Is she coaching somewhere today?

[liebs]

Ms. Browne retired from ABT some years ago and is now teaching in NYC at Steps. My daughter finds her an inspiring teacher and she is still a very beautiful woman.

[Paul Parish]

Piccolo,

Leslie Browne came from a ballet family -- her parents (one or both) had been in ABT, and her brother Ethan has been a very handsome member of hte company for quite a while (he may have retired, I haven't seen ABT for a while; the last time I saw him, a couple of years ago when Abt played Berkeley, he was one of the sailors in Fancy Free, and totally charming). I believe her parents have a school somewhere in the middle of the US, so their situation is maybe a LITTLE like that in The TUrning Point.

I saw Ms Browne quite a lot when ABT came through SanFrancisco on tour -- she was an exciting dancer, for she had a LOT of dance imagination but it looked like a not-completely-reliable technique. So with her -- like with the opera singer Gwyneth Jones -- you never knew what you were going to get -- Dame Gwyneth Jones was a GREAT singing actress, but sometimes her voice would just open up and wobble all over the place, and with Leslie Browne you just never knew what was going to happen if she lost her center. She never actually fell, but her attack would become like razor-edge as her tension mounted.

I remember her in Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto giving one of the great performances I'd ever seen of anything.

[rg]

i believe LB is often part of the NYC branch of ABT's summer intensives and sometimes has choreographed for the program's closing presentations. she's also choreographed elsewhere.

though she attended SAB, [as pointed out later in this thread] she joined nycb only briefly and then became a member of ABT.

and to elaborate on paul's commentary. both of LB's parents were dancers.

[also as pointed out elsewhere here, the names of leslie b's parents and siblings are given as follows in the n.y.p.library of the perf. arts:

(Isabel Brown; danced with Ballet Theatre under name Isabel Mirrow, 1946-early 1950s; married dancer Kelly Brown in 1951; mother of Kevin Brown and dancers Ethan Brown, Leslie Browne, and Elizabeth Laing)

( isabel b. was always close friend of nora kaye's and their friendship is said to have been the basis for the characters and of the two women in THE TURNING POINT.)

LB's and ethan's sister, lizzie - as in Elizabeth Laing, was also in ABT.

[carbro]

isabelle b. was always close friend of nora kaye's and their friendship is said to have been the basis for the characters and of the two women in THE TURNING POINT.

Yeah.

I remember going backstage at the Met after an ABT matinee. My friend was meeting his friend, a dancer in the company. Ethan Brown (who is still in ABT) had just danced one of his first solos, Benvolio, and Isabel Mirrow, his mom, was offering a couple of corrections.

It struck me as funny that Isabel so strongly resembled Shirley MacLaine, but it took me a few moments to pull the threads together and realize that it was funny (well, maybe not exactly funny, but . . . ) because Shirley played an Isabel-inspired character in TP!

But back to the subject, I believe Leslie has also taken to choreographing. Last summer's (or the summer before's?) ABT SI students did a work of hers that was really, really not bad. These days, that's something!

[oberon]

I have had the pleasure of meeting Leslie Browne several times recently...she is teaching, coaching, and choreographing. I vividly remember her Clara in the Baryshnikov NUTCRACKER. In TURNING POINT I always especially enjoy her lovely solo to Chopin during the closing credits choreographed, if I remember correctly, by Ashton.

I saw her two weeks ago "across a crowded room" at NYCB Opening Night, she looks as pretty as ever.

[sneds]

Hi!

Leslie Browne is indeed a very lovely person! She's done choreography for several groups inclduing the ABT summer program and the Brandywine Ballet in Pennsylvania.

Leslie did indeed dance with NYCB briefly-it wasn't until after "The Turning Point" that she joined ABT. It was during her time at NYCB that she changed her name from Brown to Browne.

Her brother Ethan Brown is still a soloist with ABT. Her father ran a ballet school in Arizona, which I think might have neen the precursor the Ballet Arizona school, but by that time was separated from Leslie's mom. He died many years ago of a heart attack, but Leslie's mother still lives in New York City.

Kate

[piccolo]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing her picture as part of some SI ad in a dance magazine. I'm glad to hear she's still around and involved with dance.

[atm711]

I remember Isabel Mirrow from her student days and early years with Ballet Theatre. As a d ancer she was quite different from her daughter. She had a lovely soft romantic side to her movements; her technique was not formidable but she more than made up for it with something sadly lacking today--expression.

[Arak]

I took some classes with her at a NYC Dance Alliance workshop a few years back. I don't remember much (it was probably five or six years ago), except that I enjoyed her classes.

[Rachel]

I found her breathtaking in the closing credits and Romeo and Juliet in the studio in The Turning Point. Those sequences are very inspiring.

Rachel