Ethan Brown

Born in New York City, Ethan was the fifth member of his family to dance with American Ballet Theatre. His parents, Isabel and Kelly Brown, and sisters, Leslie Browne and Elizabeth Laing, also spent their entire dance careers with ABT. He received his training at the School of American Ballet prior to joining the corps de ballet of ABT in 1981. He was promoted to the rank of soloist in 1988 and retired from the stage in 2004.

During his twenty-three year career with ABT, Ethan toured extensively throughout the world dancing a variety of soloist and principal roles in ABT’s repertoire. He has personally worked with choreographers Balanchine, Tudor, Robbins, De Mille, Macmillan, Tharp, Graham, Kilian, Neumier, Taylor, Cunningham, Morris and Tetley among many others. He has been coached in leading classical roles by Baryshnikov, Nureyev, Bujones, Dowell and Fonteyn.

In addition to performing in seventeen different countries with ABT, Ethan has appeared as a principal guest artist in galas and with companies in Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Japan. He has danced the role of the Cavalier with fifteen different ballet companies throughout the United States. In 1994, he was invited by the Martha Graham Dance Company to join them for an entire season as a principal guest artist.

Since retiring from dancing, Ethan spent several years teaching company classes for ABT and ABT Studio Company, being a faculty member of the JKO School at ABT and teaching at ABT’s Summer Intensive Programs. He is an ABT Certified Teacher in all levels of ABT’s National Training Curriculum. Ethan also annually judges ballet competitions and teaches master classes for Youth America Grand Prix. In addition to teaching at GMU, he is also currently on the faculty at Maryland Youth Ballet.