Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgan Brown.
Hi Morgan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born in San Francisco, California. Lived most of my life in Los Angeles, CA. I started dancing at the age of 15. How I found dance. Or how did Dance find me?
In 1982 – I was attending Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach and I had a class called P.E.
I hated P.E. – I hated jumping Jacks. So they had a class called Dance that would give one the same credit as a P.E. credit.
So that is the story of how I started to dance, and with that, I formed lifelong bonds of friendship. Dance made me feel I was part of something, I belonged.
Then from there, I auditioned for the California Institute of the Arts School of Dance Program in 1985. Surprisingly I got in, I had very little technical skills, but I guess they saw something in me and I was accepted into the program.
Throughout my years at Cal/Arts I was always in the lower level ballet classes, but I just practiced and practiced. Refining my skills.
When I graduated in 1989 – I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do. So I accepted an opportunity to dance for the American Dance Festival in the summer of 1989 and there I met a choreographer who changed the whole trajectory of my dance career.
His name was Donald McKayle.
Mr. McKayle had worked with so many people in the dance industry and broadway. He really took me under his wing and suggested I audition for a choreographer by the name of Cleo Parker Robinson.
Cleo had her own, paying touring traveling dance troupe located in Denver, Colorado. I was like ‘I want to dance with Ailey. At that time, Alvin Ailey was the number one black dance troupe in America. Everyone wanted to dance with them.
But I listened to Mr. Mckayle and Cleo flew to North Carolina, held an audition, and I was hired.
Remember, I only had about five years of training under my belt. I was a newbie, but I went to Colorado and danced for about six seasons with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble.
It truly was an awesome and eye-opening experience. I was able to travel and see the world all the while sharing my gift of movement. Cleo was such an awesome person she invited so many guest artists and choreographers to work with us and set pieces. I feel so blessed that I was able to spend those years developing my talents in that company.
In 1995, I decided it was time to move back home to Los Angeles and begin my quest for my Master’s Degree in Dance.
So I auditioned once again for the California Institute of the Arts and was accepted into the program.
I did two years there and once I graduated, I was at the same crossroads I was at in 1989- not knowing what to do with my life.
I mean, I had two degrees and no job. So I got super creative as artists do and started making a plan to get a job.
So around 1999- I was introduced to a friend of a friend who worked at a school called Harvard- Westlake and they were looking for a Dance Teacher for their middle school program.
I applied and got in. I absolutely loved it there. We met so many parents of children who were working in the Hollywood/ Los Angeles industry – actors, directors, producers. I loved being a part of that school.
I did that for three years, then decided to move to Africa to work and I took a job teaching ballet to Embassy children.
I was also really ansty – and wanted to travel.
From 2002-2004 I was in Africa-working and producing work with the African Music and Dance Ensemble in Ghana West Africa.
When I came back home in 2004 – I was again at a crossroads. I was looking for work.
2004-2009, I worked as a perfume model, taught dance classes at College of the Canyons as an adjunct Professor, and worked studio jobs.
I also was o the board of the Cal/arts alumni association.
In 2009, I met a wonderful man who I married. He was a Lieutenant Commander of the US Navy and was being stationed in Jacksonville, Florida.
So I picked up and moved with to Jacksonville. I still travel back and forth to LA working and seeing family.
LA will always be my home.
Over these past ten years, I have worked and traveled Internationally to Paris, France, Tbilisi Georgia, and Ankara Turkey. I have been invited to dance in each of these marvelous places. I love to travel and when I get the opportunity to share my gifts and talents, I am a very happy lady.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The obstacles I have faced and challenges over and throughout my life have been many.
Learning how to navigate tough waters is not easy. Struggling to keep a job and make money in my art form has not always been easy. I have enjoyed the ups and downs of it all. I think it has enhanced me as an artist and made my work more meaningful.
The toughest time I had was making bad decisions – I went to Africa for a relationship a very bad and abusive relationship and left a good job. I regret ever doing that – but I would not be the woman I am today if I hadn’t made those bad decisions. I mean, I had a great job and a great three story loft located in Los Feliz, CA.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
The Gift of Teaching Empower the Student By Morgan Brown
It is a gift to be able to dance and let alone share it and impart others with this gift.
I have been gifted with the ability, skill, and knowledge to dance and have a deep appreciation and understanding of movement theory. I am able to translate difficult movement concepts to my students with ease, grace, and beauty.
My teaching philosophy is to train, guide, and develop my students to understand their greatest movement potential. By contributing, managing, and supervising a dance curriculum that encompasses dance technique, student choreographic productions, and dance history/ movement theory.
My classes are well thought out and always fully subscribed not only because I am an excellent technician but because I care. I embrace each one with an extraordinary purpose and have learned that each student is an individual with varying degrees of potential. As a teacher, I understand how important it is to view each student as an individual and aid them in their individual development. My mission is to empower, educate and entertain the student by creating an atmosphere of recognition and assurance, which will inspire them to make the best possible use of their unlimited potential.
I have developed over a period of time a unique way of delivering movement in order to guide my students in the right direction of the learning process. It is imperative to me that the teacher keeps developing, researching, growing, and continually expanding his/her knowledge of dance studies and dance practice. Once you are a student of the dance, although a teacher, you are still a student of the dance forever learning and being humbled in the process.
Life and Dance are Synonymous By Morgan Brown
Life imitates art. I teach my students that dance is a vehicle to understanding yourself and has no limits. Through a variety of styles such as a variety of restaurants, you learn what you like to eat just as well as what you like to date. Dance is similar in that you have to take a lot of classes in different genres and over a period of time you decide what enhances you and what you are most passionate about.
Dance has led me down a road of many quirks and turns. Sometimes the path was straight and at others, it would bend. I noticed about myself that when the path would bend, I would have to hold on tighter and stand stronger during the turn. Sometimes I felt I was in that bend forever, then all of sudden my path would be straight again.
As the path would straighten, I would feel somewhat anxious because, deep in my heart, I knew that there would be more turns to come. Didn’t know when or how long they would stay but I knew they would come.
My point is that just as in dance there is no perfect turnout, no perfect jump, and no perfect road that we exist on. The road to life is similar to dance. The dancer is always striving to achieve his perfect performance, his perfect pirouette, his perfect everything, and nothing is perfect. Perfection comes with a sense of self-achievement, self-improvement, and self-awareness that you did not have before.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes time, discipline, and perseverance to develop into the dancer/ person you want to become. I feel that you never really arrive at the person you really are because if there is no perfection in life then you are always striving for that which you cannot attain. Life and dance is a process. I attempt to teach my students this formidable concept about life and dance. On this road of life, there will be bumps, boulders, and flowers. Just as soon as you can accept this truth you have conquered half the battle.
As I said before, the road to life or the path that we take is a journey. Although the journey comes with weeping, laughter, joy, and sadness, so does the plie, relieve contractions, and release. I take my students on a journey in every class. Teaching them to enjoy the journey, enjoy where they are today at this very moment and present situation. I have learned to enjoy this journey of life. Once you release, you have to contract again or else you can’t release anymore. So, in the end, we need the ups and downs of life, the relives, and the plies. It makes us who we are and defines our character. Similar to the road of life, if we had all straight paths where would the fun be in that?
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
It surprises me how far I have come. I have been through a lot. I am sure others have as well. But my story on how I survived and still kept dancing and teaching through all kinds of obstacles is really surprising to me.
Dance became my healer and my forever friend.
What amazes me is the human spirit – how we can do what we do and still keep doing what we love through all kinds of traumas.
This really surprises me.
Pricing:
- 1-1 0n Coaching – 75.00 per hr.
- Group lessons-15.00
- Workshops- 100 per hr
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.morganlbrown.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/morganbrownartiste/
- Facebook: morganbrowndance
Image Credits:
Tandem media Morgan Brown Brittany B.
