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For 'Merry Widow" soloist Ethan Brown,
performance is in the DNA.

Ethan Brown solos in
"The Merry Widow."

BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News

CO

ne of the dancers in The Merry Widow
at the Detroit Opera House March 29-
April 1 is Jewish ballet star Ethan
Brown, who comes from a family of
five dancers — all of whom have performed with
the American Ballet Theatre (ABT).
Brown, 39, dances solos in Acts I and III of The
Merry Widow. A 20-year veteran of ABT, he lives
in New York and teaches master classes when the
troupe is on the road.
Ethan's father was born Kelly Kingman in
Mississippi. He later changed his surname to
Brown, that of his adoptive stepfather. Ethan's
mother, Isabel Mirrow, is the daughter of Russian
Jewish immigrants. The couple danced in
Broadway musicals and movies before joining ABT.
Their daughters are former ABT principal dancer
Leslie Browne and former ABT corps member
Elizabeth Brown, who danced as Elizabeth Laing.

Another son, Kevin, is a
Hollywood producer.
Leslie added an "e" to her
surname when she danced in
the movie The Turning Point
in 1977, replacing ballet star
Gelsey Kirkland, who had to
drop out. Browne received
an Academy Award nomina-
tion for Best Supporting
Actress. She now is a chore-
ographer and teacher.
"Our family was religious
when I was a youngster and
we lived in Arizona, attend-
ing synagogue and observ-
ing the holidays and tradi-
tions," said Ethan Brown.
"But we sort of drifted away
from that and I didn't have
a bar mitzvah. None of us is
really very religious now.
My dance schedule requires
a lot of rehearsals and travel
and it's difficult to miss any
of it by taking time off for holidays."
The family operated a dance school in Arizona and
Ethan started dancing at age 6. "There was no family
pressure on me," he said. "I really wanted to dance."
But by the time he turned 9, he felt some pres-
sure from friends to compete in athletics, so he
stopped dancing for three years.
"They made fun of me because I took dancing," he
said. "I wanted to keep my friends and stay popular,"
Brown resumed classes at age 12 at his father's
request (more boys were needed to partner the girls
in classes), and he realized he liked it. "It was still like
athletics, only in a more disciplined way," he said.
Ethan's parents divorced, and he and his mother
moved to New York, where he began studying
dance at the School of American Ballet at age 13.
Six years later, in 1981, Kelly Brown died in his
early 50s, a few weeks before his son joined ABT.
Ethan had caught the eye of dancer Mikhail
Baryshnikov, who had been watching classes at

DYNASTY on page 80

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