Local sisters enjoy success in entertainment family

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — Brigadier and Noelle Brown admit they’ve had some unusual part-time jobs over the last few years.

While other teens hustle food to customers at fast food joints, baby-sit the neighbors’ kids, or get sun burned as summer camp counselors, the Brown sisters have been picking up some good money and interesting experiences at comedy shows, movie sets, and modeling shoots.

This past weekend, the girls were in Albuquerque working comedy shows with their family during The Gathering of Nations Powwow, while a short film they are featured in is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Younger sister Brigadier, 17, is the veteran entertainer, having started her stand-up comedy career with her father in 2002 when she was just 11 years old. Noelle, 19, a longtime sound technician for her family, has recently ventured from behind the scenes to try her hand at acting and modeling.

The sisters are part of a family of entertainers that includes dad Delbert — “Del the Stallion” — a stand-up comic; older sister, Delicate, who also acts and performs stand-up comedy in between caring for her two young children; and little brother Keith, 12, a fledging comic. Mom Arlene is the manager who books entertainment jobs for the family.

“She’s our ‘momager’ — shi’momager,” joked Delicate, who attended her sisters’ recent interview.

Brigadier and Noelle are getting some national exposure this week with the screening of their film, “Shimasani,” at the Tribeca Film Festival. The short narrative film, just 15 minutes long, was filmed in Navajo and features English subtitles. Directed by Blackhorse Lowe, “Shimasani” is set in the 1920s on the Navajo Reservation. Brigadier’s character, Mary Jane, stays at home with her grandmother, helping to tend the family’s sheep while her sister, played by Noelle, attends an Indian boarding school. Mary Jane’s obedient nature is tested when her sister’s world geography book sparks a desire in her to see the world.

In addition to the screenings at the film festival, the Browns said the film is being shown on some Delta Airlines flights. Brief film clips can also be viewed on the Internet.

One of Brigadier’s first film projects was a role in the 2005 film “A Thousand Roads,” which was directed by Chris Eyre and produced for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. She was also featured in the book, “Navajo Women: Saanii,” featuring text by Navajo writer Betty Reid and photographs by Kenji Kawano. In addition, all the Brown sisters had small parts in the series “Into the West,” which was produced by Steven Spielberg.

Noelle, the latest Brown sister to become interested in acting, recently finished filming the “Book of Eli,” a Denzel Washington film. Described as a “post-apocalyptic Western,” the “Book of Eli” is scheduled for release early next year.

According to Noelle, she landed a background character role, which is different than working as an extra. Background character actors don’t have lines of dialogue, she explained, but do have to attend rehearsals.

A highlight of the filming, Noelle said, was a brief, off-camera conversation with the lead actor. “I got to talk to Denzel Washington,” she said, “it was so cool.”

Noelle, who is also featured as Miss August in this year’s Women of the Navajo calendar, is studying psychology at UNM-Gallup. Once she earns her associate’s degree, she plans to go on a mission for the Mormon Church, and then return to school to earn a bachelor’s degree. Both a hoop dancer and a musician, she is interested in joining the Living Legends dance troop at Brigham Young University or playing the tuba in the marching band at Arizona State University. After that, law school is a possible option.

Brigadier, voted Funniest Girl in her senior class at Gallup High School, said she is reluctantly staying in Gallup to attend UNM-Gallup for one year — at her mother’s request.

While she plans to keep working in comedy shows and acting jobs, Brigadier has another, more serious goal. She wants to be a pediatric dentist, she said, something she’s been interested in since the seventh grade.

It’s that career interest, Brigadier explained, that has led to another part-time job that’s not quite as glamorous as stand-up comedy or acting. Each week, she said, she shows up at a local dentist’s office to peer into patients’ mouths and learn the basics of dentistry.

Information: dabrown5@hotmail.com