President Obama recently awarded the National Medal of Arts to 11 individuals and the Washington Performing Arts Society. During the past 27 years, nearly 300 extraordinary patrons and artists in the fields of visual, performing, and literary arts have been honored.
Among this year’s winners is Joan Myers Brown, the founder of The Philadelphia Dance Company or Phildanco. She also established the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts and the International Conference of Black Dance Companies. Brown serves on the dance faculty at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Brown is the subject of the book Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance by Brenda Dixon Gottschild (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).