By Kamilah Forbes
Dancer and choreographer CAMILLE A. BROWN is everywhere these days. On Broadway with Once on This Island. At the Kennedy Center with ink, a dance work in a trilogy about identity. On NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert broadcast. And as she travels in and out of rehearsal halls and between cities, Brown and members of her eponymous dance company (Camille A. Brown & Dancers) lead community engagement activities bringing about social change at schools and community centers. No wonder the Ford Foundation awarded her its Art of Change Fellowship for 2017-18.
Brown spoke recently with her collaborator, colleague, and fellow SOC Member KAMILAH FORBES, Executive Producer at the Apollo Theater in New York City.
KAMILAH| Camille, you are a celebrated choreographer, dancer, creative thinker, and dance ethnographer, and you’ve danced with a lot of different companies. Did you always want to be a dancer? How did you first come to dance? And then how did you first come to choreography?
CAMILLE| I always wanted to be a dancer. I always wanted to move. When I was four years old, my mom saw my love of dance and put me in classes at the Bernice Johnson Cultural Arts Center in Queens. I could take up to three classes (tap, ballet, African), but my mom was worried I would be overwhelmed and signed me up for just two (tap and ballet). She saw how disappointed I was at the June concert when the other children were putting on their African costumes to perform. She signed me up for all three the next year.
My mom loved musicals. She still loves them. She would show me all of her favorite dance scenes, and we would watch them over and over again. I also loved Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson videos. I learned the choreography to all the shows and dance videos and performed in the living room. I also made up dances to the opening credits of the cartoons I used to watch. As I got older, I continued taking dance classes but didn’t know that it was something I could do professionally. I was accepted into LaGuardia High School (the Fame school) and went to the Ailey School. Being an Ailey student, I could see the Ailey dancers in action. I said, “Oh my goodness, I can travel the world, dance, and get paid for it? Wow!”
The problem was that while I had teachers who believed in me and would help me achieve my goals, I also had teachers for whom I didn’t fit “the ideal” body type. I was being introduced to the business aspect of dance. There was a specific look, and I didn’t have it. Those classes were a struggle. I felt invisible and like a failure.
Since I wasn’t getting corrections from specific teachers, I decided to take notes that they were giving to everyone else. I always felt that I had to fight and work extra hard.
My weight was a big issue. I was told that I was too big and needed to lose weight. I was never surprised when my evaluations came back assigning me to go to the nutritionist. I thought I would be done with weight issues once I started college, but it followed me there as well.
That’s how I got into choreography. For the first two years I was in college [at North Carolina School of the Arts], I didn’t dance in any of the shows. I wasn’t asked to even audition for any of them because I was told I wouldn’t fit the costumes.
I was ready to transfer as soon as I got there, but my mom encouraged me not to give up. She said that I needed to focus on something other than the fact that I’d been rejected and suggested I put all my energy into something specific.
So I told myself, “Let me focus on my composition and improv classes.” I didn’t understand the idea of creating dances, but I realized it was an opportunity for me to express my own voice. I was conditioned to be a dancer – not a choreographer. I found my voice and discovered that I didn’t have to wait for anyone to tell me when to dance. I could create the dance myself.
KAMILAH | That was a real turning point. You were looking to make a space for yourself.
There’s a lot of modern dance rooted in your work as a choreographer and as a dancer. Was theatre a part of your vision that you had for your career from the start? Was it always a part of your passion as you were building your journey in dance?
CAMILLE | The love of theatre never left me, and as I started choreographing, I injected it into my work.
I was still very interested in dancing with a company, and in 2001-two months after I graduated from UNCSA-I became a member of Ronald K. Brown/Evidence. I felt at home. Ron’s work wasn’t about body type. The intent and authenticity of your movement was what mattered most. Being in his company proved that having “the ideal” body wasn’t the only way to have a successful career.
I was with the company for five seasons, and during that time, I started creating my own work. Amund 2009, I decided to have a company full time! I never wanted one initially, but after a couple of years of creating commissions for other companies, I desired a more focused and intimate rehearsal process. Eventually, I thought, “Well, Camille, you love musicals and you always try to incorporate some aspect of theatre in your work. Maybe you want to think about the possibility of choreographing for theatre.”
Theatre and concert dance are completely different worlds, so I didn’t know where to start. Georgiana Pickett, who was the Executive Director of 651 ARTS in Brooklyn at the time, suggested I start speaking it into existence. I decided t do just that.
I started telling people I was interested in choreographing for theatre. In 2011, I got an email from Daniel Aukin about a project he was building with [composer] Michael Friedman and [playwright] Itamar Moses. It was called The Fortress of Solitude. I met with Daniel and thought this was an exciting first step into the world of theatre. I didn’t expect to be chosen, because I had no theatre experience.
Surprisingly, they hired me! Someone opened the door! I have a special place in my heart for Daniel, Michael, and ltamar. They could have gotten someone who had theatre experience, and they chose someone who had none. Thankfully, my associate choreographer, Marcos Santana, had plenty of experience, so I learned the ropes while working on the show.
In the course of being on the project for five years, I got more opportunities to work in theatre. The [2012] Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, Pins and Needles with the Foundry Theatre, and more. Every time I came back to Fortress, I felt wiser. Working in theatre challenged me in different ways, and the theatre work informed my concert dance work. I was strengthening my storytelling. It also taught me about leadership and what it really means to guide a process.
Eventually, I decided to make a major shift. I pulled back from teaching and commissions for other companies to focus on my company work and theatre. It was a risk career-wise and financially, but I wanted to pour my heart into what I really cared about.
I started working on Mr. TOL E. RAncE, a work about black stereotypes past and present. The piece also honored African American humor and the perseverance of the Black performer throughout the years. It was a turning point in my career because it was my first racially charged piece.
It was also my first evening-length work. I decided to use social dance as the language to tell the story. I am completely in love with the form. Social dances tell you what time period you’re in and pack a whole lot of history. The way social dances have progressed through time has always fascinated me, and this was a chance to dive deep into the history of it all.
My approach challenged the dancers as well. We had always done character work, but with everything I had learned from my theatre experiences, I found new ways to direct them. I started seeing my dancers as actors and not dancers because of what I was requiring them to do. This shift in the way we worked as a company was an emotional experience. We became a stronger company for it.
KAMILAH | I’m wondering if that’s the case because, as you said, you borrowed from both forms. What are some of the most important elements of storytelling for you in theatre and in your concert dance work?
CAMILLE | The most important thing is: what is the story about and how do we express that in the clearest way? What is the narrative and its arc? What is the journey? How do you challenge audiences? Challenge yourself?
I’m always asking myself questions! I have a book for each piece that I create. I started [that practice] with Mr. TOL E. RAncE. If you open the book, you’ll see a series of questions, questions, questions … just asking myself about the work and rehearsal, what I learned, and how I want audiences to feel. I always try to start with a feeling. With TOL E. RAncE, I wanted people to be entertained and then make them extremely uncomfortable and question why they found “the entertainers” so funny. I wanted to pull the rug from underneath them.
KAMILAH | I love that the book is full of questions.
Where do you find most of your inspiration for your choreographic work? ls it always in this idea of a conversation with the audience?
CAMILLE | During the process of creating my trilogy on identity, the ideas were definitely inspired by conversations with audiences. But I always allow inspiration to come from other places. Interactions on the subway, personal experiences, the politics of the day, reading a book, hearing a song .. .! leave myself open to the possibilities.
In 2007, I choreographed Evolution of a Secured Feminine, which is a solo. The piece was about a girl who grows up, falls in love, gets her heart broken, and then finds a way to reclaim who she is. I wanted to use jazz singers: Ella Fitzgerald is my favorite, and she influences me as a dancer because she’s so clear and precise. My objective is to have the same clarity, range, and precision she has in her voice in my body. I also chose Nancy Wilson and Betty Carter. I wanted to embody their sounds and transform the instrument of their voices into a body language.
City of Rain (2010) is a work I created about a friend of mine who had passed away. He had a severe illness that caused him to be paralyzed from the waist down. We went to college together, and he was a dancer. As his friend, I saw his struggles firsthand. I wanted to create something that honored him.
The first solo in BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (2015) is a rendition of Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place.” We were in tech rehearsal one day at American Dance Festival, and one of the crew members asked to play some music during the break. That song came on, and I said, “I want to dance to that!”
Inspiration comes from everywhere!
KAMILAH | It’s as though your surroundings are what influence you. The questions are what influences you. So let me ask you this: when you’re choreographing or building a work whether it’s concert dance, whether it’s TOL E. RAncE, or like the piece influenced by your friend … walk me through your process.
CAMILLE | My process is challenging. I want each of my pieces to have its own movement language. It should have its own sensibility. That takes time and patience. For my concert dance work, I give myself at least one to two years to create a piece. This desire to have an extensive process really came from theatre. I wanted to give myself the opportunities to fly and fall before showing the work in front of audiences. Or at least get it to a place where my team and I are happy with the work, regardless of what people think.
And then, of course, here come all the questions!
At first, I felt really bad about my process. All I had were questions. It felt very wrong because I hadn’t seen other choreographers work in that way. Then I was reading SDC Journal and read that I may be referencing the Socratic Questioning technique. It still may not be exactly what I’m doing, but reading it did give me some form of ease. I’m not wrong! It’s just my process!
KAMILAH | You have this book with the questions. But when you [do] your pre-prep, do you go in with the questions, build a dance vocabulary, and then put it on dancers and actors? Or do you get in the room with your dancers and actors and build a vocabulary?
CAMILLE | I build it on myself first but leave space for the dancers and actors to have their own interpretations of the movement.
For me, choreographing is about collaboration. I am not inspired without the choices of the people in the room. It’s very much like social dance. There is a structure, but it’s also about the individual’s creative identity. That’s What makes the dance speak.
There is a lot of investigation. I want to have a clear understanding of how the movement and stories shift. Each piece should be different from the last, and the only way to do this is to explore all possibilities. It takes time to develop a language. It can be frustrating at times, but in the end, it’s totally satisfying and worth it. I like challenging myself.
At times, my process drives me crazy. I’ll have all these ideas that don’t have anything to do with each other and can’t make sense of them. I’ve learned how to navigate through this. It’s a very strange and awkward feeling to not understand how things are lining up, but I’ve learned to trust that the ideas are coming as they should and, eventually, everything will align.
My dancers, collaborators, and I also have a lot of conversations. Listening is very important to me. I want my team to feel that they are contributing to the creation of the work in important ways. It’s coming from me, but it’s also coming from them. It’s important to talk and make sure we’re all on the same page. Everyone performing has to believe in every step. Otherwise, the story won’t be strong or dear.
Because I collaborate with my dancers and give them a space to express their feelings, a lot of my pieces are based on their personalities. This was definitely true for the duets in BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play. I put Beatrice [Capote] and Fana [Fraser) together because they just clicked. They had a nice energy together. The way they interacted was very sisterly. Their duet became about sisters-one older, one younger-who were growing up at different frequencies and how they navigated their relationship while growing up. Cab Catherine Foster and I have known each other since we were 15, so we have always shared that sisterhood and camaraderie thing. Our duet is about best friends who never leave each other’s side and connect through rhythm, social dance, and the beat of the street.
For the last session of BLACK GIRL, Mora-Amina Parker-one of my dancers-suggested there be a matriarchal figure in the piece. She felt strongly about the story of black motherhood being told. I agreed. Based on her suggestion, the last section became about a mother caring for her child and preparing her for adulthood.
KAMILAH | When you’re working with non-dancers, is your process just as rigorous?
CAMILLE | There isn’t as much time to work with actors the way I work with my dancers, but the process is the same. I am inspired by people’s choices, and actors embody a world of choices! Our time is tighter, but I still throw out questions and drive the importance of intent. The people in the room really guide where the work goes.
KAMILAH | Got it. Well, then, moving on to your most recent work with one my favorite musicals, Once on This Island. Was Once on This Island a part of your life before this current production?
CAMILLE | I had never seen Once on This Island but was very intrigued by the story. I knew it was a very popular musical-which made me nervous! It’s hard to step in as a choreographer and create material for a show that’s been done thousands of times. I got a little bit in my head about it. I knew my role as a part of the creative team was extremely important. I wanted to honor the culture of Haiti and the Caribbean islands but also honor my choreographic voice.
People ask me what the inspiration behind the movement for the show was. Culture always tells you where to go. The challenge was to create a language that combines culture, my voice, and the actor’s creative identity.
I connected with Maxine Montilus, an Afro-Haitian/Afro-Cuban consultant. We had four sessions together. I told her that these sessions were not so I could implant these specific steps into the show. It was about me knowing the origins of steps so they could help’inform my choreographic choices.
The other challenge for me was the production was staged in the round and I had never choreographed anything in the round before. I was creating my latest work, ink, at the same time, so I used that opportunity to practice what that felt like. There are a lot of circular movements in that work. It’s interesting how opportunities lend themselves to others. I’m grateful for it all.
KAMILAH | But again, you have that ability to take all these influences and make them specifically your own. This particular production was placed in Haiti, which gives you
a strong landing point. But when it was originally written, it was nondescript on where the country was. There was “Let’s take a little bit of this influence, let’s take a little bit of that influence.” That’s kind of like Caribbean islands, right? It has a lot of different cultural influences to make its own. That feels like a lot of what you do as a choreographer: you get inspired and take a lot of different influences and make them your own into a very unique language.
CAMILLE | Yes! It’s hard to describe my work because I am drawing from many different styles-modern, jazz, tap, hip hop, social dance, ballet… it’s all in there. I call my language “jambalaya.”
KAMILAH | I love how you talk a lot about your collaborators. Having been one of them, I feel as though you offer such generous recognition of collaborators in your room. It’s also very prominent on your website. So I’m wondering, what have been some of your favorite partnerships, and how did your process grow through those collaborations and/or partnerships? Did your process change?
CAMILLE | Well, my favorite partnerships are with you, Talvin Wilks, and Daniel Banks.
KAMILAH | Aww.
CAMILLE | I had never worked with dramaturgs before. I didn’t know that type of work existed. Someone who saw that my work was influenced by theatre suggested that I work with a dramaturg, That’s when I first connected with Talvin. He led me to you and Daniel! All of you are brilliant in very distinct ways, so having your critical eyes on my work is vital. Three different, incredibly informed perspectives.
You challenge and guide me without telling me what to do. It’s made me a stronger thinker and choreographer, and has inspired me to become a director/ choreographer in theatre.
Another collaboration that I enjoy is with my Associate Choreographer, Rickey Tripp. He has taught me so much about the business. I learn something new every time I work with him, and we’ve been on many journeys together. Rickey is my teammate. He supports my vision and is a really great friend. We have the best time together! The laughs are endless! He supports me in the same way you, Talvin, and Daniel do.
KAMILAH | I love that that you said guiding but without telling you what to do. That’s great.
I have a question about your company. I know you’ve work with Complexions and Ronald
K. Brown and Urban Bush Women. Then you formed your own company. The way I look at it, you broke all those barriers that deemed you an outsider. It’s sort of the definition of your company. Can you talk a little bit about that?
CAMILLE | It was important for me to create a space where I could write (dance) my own narrative and provide a space where others can do the same.
I look for dancers who are interested in character development and taking chances. I’m always challenging myself and want to be in a room with like-minded people. It’s also important that they are good people who have a sense of humor.
My company is a family. We are all friends who love and like each other. Transparency is important. I always strive to be the best leader and communicator I can be.
KAMILAH | I hear you. But what’s beautiful is that’s a foundation that you create. That’s a powerful thing: by creating that space, you’re shifting a lot of paradigms because you’re ultimately shifting what we see on concert stages. Whether it’s intentional or not, I think it has a big impact, so thank you for that.
CAMILLE | Thank you.
KAMILAH | I have one more question. One of your TED Talks is about the visual history of social dance in 25 moves. Very infrequently in black culture do we acknowledge the major contribution that we have had on American culture. It’s about the culture, history, and legacy that’s in social dances. There’s so much we take for granted, so thank you for putting it front and center.
Even the visual history that you presented in that TED Talk encapsulates the brilliance and innovation of black people, which I absolutely love. But I’ve often wondered what inspired you to do that. What inspired you to say, “Hey listen, this is necessary…I have to make this TED Talk happen.”
CAMILLE | My desire to lift up social dance started when I was creating Mr. TOL E. RAncE. I used social dances as a way for audiences to know place and time; it took a lot of research to get there. I connected with [educator/ choreographer/ethnographer] Moncell Durden and asked him to consult with me on the history of social dances.
As with Once on This Island, I wanted to know the origins so I could riff on them. I started making connections and realized that I was not educated to understand or even to acknowledge that social dances were important to American culture. Growing up in Queens, I knew all the social dances. But once I delved deeper into concert dance, it became clear that this form was something that was outside of the studio. It was not considered a technique.
Looking back at my training as a student, I realize there was a void. There were books about African American contributions to dance, but they were never suggested reading. Knowing the history of ballet, modern, and the teachings of George Balanchine and Martha Graham were at the heart of my Dance Perspectives classes. In the books I was given, the only black choreographer listed was Alvin Ailey – and that was a very short chapter. Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus were mentioned at times, but they were mere paragraphs. Now it makes me think about what “perspectives ” I was being taught.
I decided to change my teaching method after that. Now I teach social dances through time. Either I keep complaining or I do something about it.
It’s necessary and something that black people – all people – need to understand. To honor the people who contributed to American culture who have been silenced. Illuminate the invisible.
Alex Rosenthal, the Editorial Producer of TED-Ed, approached me after I performed during the TED Conference and asked if I was interested in doing a TED Talk surrounding the themes of my solo from BLACK GIRL. It is inspired by [the style of] Juba, an African American social dance that started on the plantation by enslaved Africans. Alex and Angela Chang, the director of the video, were game from the jump. We worked on the script for a year. Community is at the center of the talk. We show people of different age ranges joining together in communities to dance.
The success of the talk is mind-blowing. TED had a huge audience, so I knew the numbers would be greater than anything I’ve ever experienced, but 15 million views?! And for it to be a video focused on African American social dance is just fantastic. I love that these voices-these black voices-that haven’t been acknowledged to the degree that they should have this huge platform. Now everybody knows it.
MICHAEL ARDEN
On Camille A. Brown & ONCE ON THIS ISLAND on Broadway
Given that Camille’s coming from a concert dance world and a company world, and I’m coming from the theatre side of things, we did a lot of talking at first. Before we started rehearsals, she showed me pieces of choreography from around the world that she thought could influence the piece.It was important for us to be as authentic as possible with the movement as well as everything else in the show. We slowly began working through, and Camille would show me pieces she set out for dancers, and I loved everything she did. It became a question of how do we tell a story with movement? We really worked side by side in the rehearsal room. I’m sure I got in the way of her movement, and she got in mine, but eventually we really found a way to work through it together.
It felt a little bit like a chess game. We approached it in very different ways. Camille likes to create movement on her own without me in the room trying to mess with it and taking stuff away. So it’s like playing chess with someone. But you both have to win. It ends up being a lovely tie game in which a beautiful picture is created.
She deals a lot in polyrhythm and incredibly complex movement, which was somewhat out of the realm of what you would normally assume would come out of the score. I think Camille helped us all discover that there were more interesting rhythms within the piece, story-wise, too, for the actors as well as the dance. It became more interesting physically than I think it would’ve been without her.
ROBERT O’HARA
On Camille A. Brown & BELLA: AN AMERICAN TALL TALE
at Playwrights Horizons
What was exciting about Camille was her ability to home in on the history involved in the piece. She has a lot of innate ability for social dance and knowledge of the history of dance, and it’s highly intelligent.
I wanted there to be a relationship to the present and past. Because she also has her own dance company, when I was working with her, she was not so used to working with actors. That’s always a bit of a danger when you have a choreographer who is normally working with people who are first and foremost dancers.What I like to do with choreographers is to give them the room and allow them to have as much control over the space as possible. I don’t like to be in the room when they’re creating because I don’t want the artist looking at me for confirmation. Camille had an incredible control, not only in what she was doing but also in the room itself, with a lot of personality, which I thought was fantastic.
What’s so exciting about her is that she requires of the people working with her that they not only learn the steps but, before they learn the steps, that they learn the history of the steps. That we’re just not putting moves on actors, but there’s a history to the design that she’s making.
She was also very connected to what I was doing in the room. She would come often and watch how things were being set up. But what I found to be incredibly insightful was the demand that she made on the actors that they can do it, and if they can’t do it, she will change it, but they have to go full out to show her if they can do it. There were some times when she was about to change stuff, and the actors would beg her not. They were like, “We can get it. We can get it.” And she was like, “Well, you’re not showing me that you can get it. You have to show me that you can get it, or we can change it.”
PATRICIA McGREGOR
On Camille A. Brown & STAGGER LEE at Dallas Theater Center
Camille has all the elements of a collaborator that you would want. Very specifically, for Stagger Lee, because the play ranges over a century of American history through the black experience and, in many ways, the characters are archetypes of the Great Migration in many of these stories, Camille’s knowledge and commitment to the history of black social dance was important to have. In Stagger Lee, we start out in the 1890s in Lyon, Mississippi. At that point, we needed not only a knowledge of, “Okay, how would this translate dramatically?” but what black social dances were going on at that time and how did those reflect and represent the community? How was, for example, the ring shout used? In what way was that an opportunity to reflect resistance and resilience?To have somebody who is steeped in the history of those dances, and not just the technique but the why, the social implications of what that dance came out of, was vital. I think often we see a movement, and people might know the surface of it, but they don’t know the deeper history.
Camille was able to take in my strong ideas from the beginning, I was able to take in her strong ideas when she came in, and then it was all about just negotiating time and space. It was all give-and-take. She just took ideas and heightened them with her particular lens and expertise. That was glorious.