Storytelling Through Dance

CAMILLE A. BROWN’S VISION AND VOICE 

By Scott Edward Anderson

Whitney Browne (2)

THE PERLES FAMILY STUDIO at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival fills with the rhythmic pulse of drums and jazz piano, the percussive beats echoing through the space as dancers in street clothes move in intricate patterns. Sitting in the front row is Camille A. Brown, her eyes focused on the dancing figures as their precise and energetic movements seem to express each dancer’s individuality. The sequence is from her upcoming world premiere, I AM, which her dance company will perform this summer in the Pillow’s Ted Shawn Theatre from July 31 to August 4. With each step in the choreography, Brown weaves together threads of Black history, culture, and personal expression, creating a tapestry that celebrates both the resilience and the joy of the African diaspora. 

At 44, Brown’s rise as a dancer, choreographer, and director has been almost meteoric. Over the past 20 years, she has choreographed everything from Shakespeare at the Public Theater and Shakespeare in the Park to the Live TV broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar; from commissions for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Philadanco! to becoming the first Black artist to direct a mainstage production at the Metropolitan Opera, where she shared directorial duties with James Robinson for Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up In My Bones in 2021. 

She’s been a TED fellow and a Guggenheim fellow and has won almost every major dance award. Brown recently received her fourth Tony Award® nomination, this one for her choreography in the Broadway show Hell’s Kitchen, a collaboration with recording artist and composer Alicia Keys. (At the time this issue went to print, the winners had not been announced.) That show also earned Brown a 2024 Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Choreography in a Broadway Show, an honor she shared with Jesse Robb and Shana Caroll for their work in Water for Elephants. 

Raised in the vibrant streets of New York City, Camille A. Brown found her muse in the rhythms and movements surrounding her as she commuted from Queens to Fiorello LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan. She drew inspiration from what she observed, everything from Hip-Hop and Black social dance to the hustle and bustle of the subway at rush hour. Brown absorbed all of it, storing it in what she called in an interview her “blood memory.” 

Her mother, a lover of musical theater, introduced the young Brown to dance—together, they would watch her mother’s favorite musicals. She also learned to play the clarinet and did gymnastics, but dance made her light up. In a video interview with Playbill, Brown confessed she danced to everything when she was a young girl, including cartoons on TV. 

From an early age, she was captivated by the fluid grace of Ella Fitzgerald’s vocals, drawn to the way the jazz legend’s voice seemed to dance through each note. “How she sings is how I wanted my body to move,” Brown reflects. “With the clarity and range, speed—all those things she was able to do with her voice, I wanted to embody that in myself.” 

“It’s important to make sure that Black stories are told and archived,” Brown adds. Her 2016 TED Talk, “A Visual History of Social Dance in 25 Moves,” which has over 1.6 million views, captures her deep understanding of the history of Black social dance and its gestures and movements often show up in her choreography. 

A friend exposed her to a video of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performing Ronald K. Brown’s Grace, with its mix of African and modern dance styles, and it changed her perspective on what dance could be. After graduating from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2001, she learned Ronald K. Brown was looking for a female dancer to join his company, Evidence. She danced with them until 2007. 

It was as a dancer with Evidence that Camille A. Brown first came to the attention of Pam Tatge, then head of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. “I was struck by her capabilities as a dancer,” recalls Tatge, who soon learned that the young Brown was also a budding choreographer. In 2013, Brown was awarded Wesleyan’s Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award. 

“One rarely sees the kind of agency she imparts to her dancers,” says Tatge. “The power of her intentions course through the dancers as individuals.” It’s part of Brown’s gift as a choreographer and director that she invests so much in her dancers, empowering them to bring themselves into the work, Tatge adds. 

When Tatge took over the directorship of Jacob’s Pillow, she was informed that she would be responsible for picking the 2016 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. The award, supported by an anonymous donor, is meant to honor a visionary in dance. Tatge knew immediately she wanted to give it to Brown. “She’s just so gifted,” Tatge says. Watching a rehearsal of Brown’s company in New York, Tatge also knew she wanted to commission a new piece for the Pillow. 

“Pam has always supported my work as a choreographer,” says Brown, “and when she found out I wanted to do a new piece for my company, she invited me to do a residency.” The Pillow Lab residency in 2023 allowed Brown a concentrated time with her company, away from the distractions of the city to focus on the work. It proved invaluable to her creative process. There is something magical about residencies, says Brown. “We have our rehearsal at specific times,” she says. “But living together, eating together, and playing together like that creates more intimacy, more discoveries, and more focus with the company.” 

Tatge was also conscious that she wanted to support Brown with her own dance company. “Once a choreographer starts taking on commissions for other companies or on Broadway,” Tatge explains, “it’s often difficult for them to keep their own companies going. We wanted to make sure Camille had the time and space to bring the company together and to create new work—the ‘special sauce’ is the connectivity of the ensemble.” 

Towards the end of Brown’s residency, that new work, I AM, was screened for a private audience of Pillow donors and members and, although the performance was only ten minutes of a work-in-progress, people were enthralled. “There was such excitement,” Tatge recalls. “It was a very powerful moment.” 

For Brown, the line between concert dance and musical theater is a fluid one, each informing and enriching the other. “In theater, you have the script, the music—elements you’re basing your work on,” she explains. “But with my company, we’re building it from the ground up.” This collaborative approach allows her to bring together various dance genres and gestural languages, creating a singular vision that celebrates the past while boldly pushing into the future. 

“Camille gives that space and that flexibility for the dancers to open up,” says dancer Beatrice Capote, who is in her seventh season with Camille A. Brown & Dancers. “There’s a lot of choreographers that are definitely just looking at you as your movement, but she looks at the person.” 

Whether Brown is choreographing for her own company or for a theatrical production, she always starts with story. “What is the story we’re trying to tell?” she asks. The story, the arc, and the mood all inform the choreography. “It's storytelling being driven through dance.” Dance has long been a way for Brown to express herself and she was always conscious of finding her own voice, and, while there may be elements of influences and styles, her work remains uniquely her own. 

The new work, I AM, was inspired by the sounds and rhythms of the drumline and the marching bands of historically Black colleges and universities, as well as an episode of the HBO show Lovecraft Country. That episode, which bears the same title as Brown’s piece, examines the self-exploration and self-expression of the main character, Hippolyta, who loses her husband, and the immeasurable grief and resilience she has in the face of that loss. Just as in therapy, naming oneself is an important part of recovery. Brown asks, “What does it mean to step into ourselves and name ourselves?” This is directly tied to Brown’s choreographic style—she asks her dancers to bring all of themselves to each piece as individuals. 

“She gives us the freedom to create choices. It’s not like your normal dance company where she comes in, she gives you the step, you learn it and then you go,” says Juel D. Lane, who has danced Brown’s choreography in NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar and Fire Shut Up in My Bones at the Met. “She’s more interested in what can you do with the step? What is your ‘why’ behind the step?” 

I AM takes off from the end of ink, the third part of her trilogy from 2017 on race, culture, and identity, where the dancers are reaching up for the sky. In the new work, she imagines what it would be like for the dancers to actually fly. 

Alain “Hurrikane” Lauture in I AM

In 2021, Brown made her Broadway directorial debut with the revival of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, the first Black woman to both direct and choreograph a Broadway play since Katherine Dunham in 1955. “I always wanted to choreograph for Broadway, and I dreamed—far away in the universe—I’d be able to direct one day,” Brown admits. “For it to be Ntozake Shange’s ‘choreopoem,’ I mean, no pressure!” What made directing for colored girls feel even more special was that Brown’s mother had often taught her daughter lessons about perseverance and resilience, lessons she’d gleaned from Shange’s play. 

The production received seven Tony® nominations, including Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Play and, perhaps even more impressive, when faced with an unexpected early closure, a social media campaign started by the Broadway community rallied to keep the show going and extend its run. 

Both choreography and directing bring something distinct to Brown, allowing her to grow and expand her vision in different ways for diverse audiences. “I definitely want to continue directing for theater,” Brown says, and she is actively pursuing opportunities, as well as looking into directing for film and television. “Debbie Allen was a great inspiration to me in terms of how she expanded her career, from dancer to director and producer for movies,” says Brown of the former Fame star. “We all have our own path, but her work helps me believe all things are possible.” 

Brown is often faced with nay-sayers—people who tell her she shouldn’t try to do it all, that she should pick a lane and stick to it. She has scaled back on some things—she no longer teaches, for example—but Brown feels strongly that each aspect of her work reinforces and strengthens the other. “In my mind,” she offers, “it is possible to run a company and be in opera, theater, TV, and film. I’m not saying it’s easy; I’m saying I’m doing it—and doing it with a lot of support and a lot of love around me.” 

What’s next? “I’m just going to keep moving forward,” she says