The body doesn’t lie, so Camille A. Brown needed to know the truth about what she was saying.
“It sounds good. very Nice,” Sean Johnson-Faust told her softly.
Brown told his early teacher, Johnson Faust, tap duet From her famous “Black Girl: Linguistic Play”. Even with her sneakers on, Johnson-Faust watched it with her eyes closed to get a better sense of the rhythm her feet were beating out. Her words made an immediate impact. Brown’s shoulders softened. Her brows are relaxed. Her entire alertness relaxed.
Johnson Faust, an important influence on Brown, taught with drums. “The drums played a rhythm and I had to mimic that rhythm,” Brown said in a previous interview. “So I feel like a lot of my influence is based on how I was trained on tap. Feeling the rhythm and playing with it all. We were young. I was around 11. I didn’t know what she was giving us.
Looking to mentors and teachers while examining the history of ballroom dancing is an important part of Brown’s process, requiring a sensitivity to the past along with theatrical and choreographic ingenuity. But this season, the 42-year-old Brown faces a more personal challenge. She has performed a trilogy of acclaimed dance works. This will probably be the last time I’ll be performing with her company, including Tol E. Rance, Black Girl, and ink.
When rehearsals ended, Brown told Johnson Faust, “Whatever it is, I want it to look strong, purposeful, and purposeful.”
Those words sum up Brown, a dynamic and sought-after Tony Award-nominated choreographer and director. Her seminal work of hers has brought her many successes on Broadway and in opera. The world of concert dance.
Brown is the director and choreographer of the critically acclaimed Broadway staging of Tozake Shange’s “For the Colored Girls Who Contemplate Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf”, which closed ahead of schedule . In February, he will choreograph his second production, Terrence Blanchard’s “Champion,” at the Metropolitan Opera House. (As choreographer and co-director of Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021, she’s given her work the jolt it needs.)
In her trilogy, Brown explores aspects of the Black experience that have been misappropriated, neglected, or lost while grappling with issues of race and identity. “Mr. TOL E. RANCE” (2012), which focuses on minstrelsy, and “Black Girl” (2015), a joyous extravaganza of games, dance and chant, will be performed at the Joyce Theater from October 25-30. Also on November 4 and she will perform “Ink” (2017), about the resilience of the black community, at the Apollo Theater on November 5.
Apollo Executive Director Camilla Forbes called Brown “the norm-defining artist of our generation.” Forbes, who has acted as a dramaturge in her two productions in the trilogy and directs the musical Soul Train with Brown as choreographer, likes that “ink” is on Apollo.
She describes it as a work that celebrates and explores “walkers, gestures, black movements, and how we as black people arise with each other, with our bodies, and with that language.” “It’s best suited for Apollo. When you walk into 125th Street, that’s our culture, and the physical communication of our culture is on display.”
Born and raised in Queens, where she still lives, Brown began dancing when she was four years old. She studied at LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts and earned her BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts before joining Ronald K. Brown’s company, Her Evidence, in 2001.
But during her training, she said dancing struggled, especially with body image. “But there were those teachers too. If you’re not a favorite, you’ll know right away. You’ll know when a teacher isn’t feeling you. And it made me feel horrible.”
Now when she teaches (which is rare), Brown tries to make everyone in the room visible. And that goes for her work as a director as well. “How do you make people believe that the space belongs to them,” she said. “They own it and are they good enough?”
Over the last few years, Brown has shown how deeply he owns his space. Recently, she opened up about her own trilogy, her fears about her performance, and how transformative it was to step out on her own.Here’s an edited excerpt of that interview. This is what I did.
Are you really not going to dance with your company after this?
The last company show was in March 2020. She was 40 years old at the time and already felt that her body was changing. I’m not sure I can keep this up. As a choreographer she spent six weeks and the next week she had to fly with her company and go on stage to dance.
Now I’m starting to get directing opportunities and I know I need to be more behind the scenes. But that requires a change of mindset.
How did the trilogy work change and crystallize your choreographic trajectory?
“TOL E. RANCE” was my first political and possibly controversial work. It was my first evening long. It was the first true attempt at creating a theatrical experience, including theater and acting and character work. The beginning of this felt like who Kamille is and this is who Kamille wants to be.
Have you established your point of view?
yes. We all have influence. And there is one point we must go to. what is my influence? what is my voice You have to decide which way you want to go. Do you want your influence to support you or do you want it to lead? And I didn’t want my influence to lead. I wanted my voice to lead in support of my influence, but I think it’s very different.
How did you approach ‘Black Girl’?
I wanted to make a mini-movie with an arc, but you’re just watching it zone into this one story and go from A to Z. And “TOL E. RANCE” is both about seeing a realization of who we are and celebrating the artists who were born before us. But when we start being bards, it’s not about who you are, it’s about what you wear.”TOL E.RANcE” is always nervous.
why?
Because it’s not just meant to entertain people, it’s also meant to make people feel very uncomfortable and make them think about where we are right now. was finishing his first term and people were talking, oh this is a post-racist society. George Floyd.
What about “ink”?
The ‘ink’ goes back to itself, but what if we took it to the next level and could fly? That’s how we see ourselves in the future. I started thinking, what is the black superpower? And it is resilience and perseverance.
Do you want to continue your dance company?
that’s right. Besides everything else, you have to figure out how to do it. That’s hard.
A company is like an incubator for your ideas.
Yes Yes. I wanted to be ready, so I worked with the company to come up with the idea for “For Colored Girls.” By the time we got to the official rehearsals, we had a rough draft of what we wanted to do in terms of movement from start to finish.
You have worked on so many famous works, from the opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” to “For Colored Girls.” How did you handle that pressure?
The stakes felt very high. It was like, OK, showing people who you are, no matter what. And be brave enough to do it. The mentor said, “Make sure everything on that stage is what you want and what you see for this piece.” And it was a lesson.that is myself on stage.
How disappointed were you when “For Colored Girls” ended?
Oh I was shocked. I remember giving my closing night speech. And it was so unreal. I couldn’t believe I was standing on stage saying goodbye. we made something Is it because of the sudden shutdown? I mean, I understand that we’re in that situation, but you’re not ready for it. But I was proud of what we did. It was an opportunity to see another side of me.
How do you see the future of dance in your life? Are you going to the theater more?
I definitely want to do more directing and directing/choreographing. I want to do more movies and TV. Debbie Allen is one of my role models. She loves how expansive her career is. So she’s directing ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. I would like to expand my career in that way.
What does it feel like to play for you now?
It’s scary. I entered Evidence when she was 21 years old. There is a person who met you for the first time at the age of 42. So my friends and mentors try to stress me not to try to be who you were 10 years ago. Be who you are now.
Are you making any changes?
I plan to make adjustments to what I am doing. I think it’s wise. Dance and movement, and the ability to show it through the body, So very much to me. I hope my body can communicate the way I want it to communicate.
And I think I should enjoy it too. I think I should remind myself to do that. it will help.
is! you have to find joy.
Interestingly, what we’re playing is about joy, and I’m sitting here freaking out. Dancing with happy people.I lean into what the piece really is and have fun.