Remembering Carolyn Brown, 1927–2025
On January 7, 2025, Carolyn Brown, a founding member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, died at the age of 97. One of the great American dancers of her generation, she was an exquisite mover who commanded the stage with her powerful presence.
Born Carolyn Rice on September 26, 1927, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Brown began her dance training and performing with her mother Marion Rice’s company. (Rice was a student of, and performer with, the modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn.) In 1950, Carolyn graduated with honors in philosophy from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and married composer Earle Brown, creator of the notational concept known as open form. The next year, after taking a master class with Cunningham, she said, “I’d never seen anyone move like Merce: He was a strange, disturbing mixture of Greek god, panther, and madman.” She moved to New York City to pursue a full-time career in dance, continuing her dance training with Cunningham and at the Juilliard School. She became a longtime student of the Cecchetti method with British dancer Margaret Craske.
Brown’s first performance with Cunningham was on March 24, 1953, at the University of Illinois. The Cunningham Company was officially formed at Black Mountain College in the summer of that year, with Cunningham, Brown, Viola Farber, Remy Charlip, Marianne Preger (later Preger-Simon), and Paul Taylor as its first dancers.
For 20 years, Carolyn Brown was one of Cunningham’s primary partners. “My memories of her when I joined the company was how perfectly she complemented Merce,” says former Cunningham Company member Susana Hayman-Chaffey. The late Farber also performed in numerous duets with Cunningham, and due to their contrasting qualities, the two were often compared as fire (Farber) and ice (Brown): Farber’s dancing came across as free and untamed, whereas Brown demonstrated absolute control via her exquisite technical skills.
Over the years, Brown was in the original cast of 40 works by Cunningham, including Suite for Five, Antic Meet, Summerspace, Night Wandering, Crises, Aeon, Winterbranch, Scramble, RainForest, and Walkaround Time. Brown also created a role in John Cage’s Theatre Piece and performed on pointe in Robert Rauschenberg’s performance piece, Pelican.
Dancing was not Brown’s only creative pursuit. She was a teacher at the Cunningham Studio, and a filmmaker; she assisted in restaging several Cunningham works on other dance companies. She was also a choreographer. Her works included As I Remember It, a solo in homage to Ted Shawn performed at Jacob’s Pillow, and Balloon II, for Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain.

Brown’s final performance with the Cunningham Company was on October 29, 1972, at Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. In her book Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham (2007), she recounts her remarkable tenure with the company. It is a stirringly written firsthand account of a momentous era in the 20th century, one that altered the history of dance, art, music, and theater. In it, she describes her encounters with many of the artists who worked with Cunningham, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Robert Morris, and filmmaker Charles Atlas.
Those who saw her dance—and those who, like me, shared the stage with her—will never forget the inimitable Carolyn Brown.