Veteran dancer and choreographer Camille A. Brown back at Joyce SoHo with new work
by Mary Staub
Encore Magazine
http://encoremag.com/?q=article&id=458
Every time the 29 year-old dancer and choreographer Camille A. Brown sets out on a new creative voyage she embarks from a different challenge. For her latest work, which premiers at the Joyce SoHo on June 4, Brown’s challenge was love.
“I’m always trying to push myself and I was thinking about everything I have created,” Brown said this past April. “I realized that I hadn’t really done a piece about love, except for a solo, but never anything with partnering. Also, the dancers are speaking in this piece. A lot of what I do is pedestrian and sometimes I ask the dancers to speak during the creative process because it’s important that they hold on to their real reactions. This time what they were saying really made sense, so now the process is in the actual performance. I think of them as people who happen to be dancing, not dancers dancing.”
Brown, a veteran dancer of Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, self-produced her first solo show at the Joyce SoHo just two and a half years ago and has evolved considerably, both in breadth and intensity, since then. Not only can her voice now reach farther thanks to commissions by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard II and Philadanco, among others, but her voice itself is more defined.
“I can see my own voice when I’m creating and I know what I want,” Brown said. “And I always pray that people see my voice come out. I do ask for input from people whom I trust. Sometimes I take their suggestions and a lot of times I now don’t. I have to have confidence in my work, without being cocky.”
Cocky is the last thing Brown comes across as. The dancers she works with, for example, are all long-time friends and acquaintances whose participation it becomes clear she appreciates immensely. “We were friends before we were in this situation [of choreographer and dancers] and that helps a lot because as choreographer you put yourself in place of vulnerability,” Brown said. “I have to be able to ask ‘can you try this?’ without wondering what they’ll think. I think about it like a community. When you have great space things will flow, whether or not they work, things are still flowing.
Her modesty is equally apparent in her approach to audiences. “People are gonna take what they take from my work,” Brown said. “I try not to force people. It’s important that they get a story, but if they have a different interpretation, that’s cool.”
Through June 7.
by Mary Staub
Encore Magazine
http://encoremag.com/?q=article&id=458
Every time the 29 year-old dancer and choreographer Camille A. Brown sets out on a new creative voyage she embarks from a different challenge. For her latest work, which premiers at the Joyce SoHo on June 4, Brown’s challenge was love.
“I’m always trying to push myself and I was thinking about everything I have created,” Brown said this past April. “I realized that I hadn’t really done a piece about love, except for a solo, but never anything with partnering. Also, the dancers are speaking in this piece. A lot of what I do is pedestrian and sometimes I ask the dancers to speak during the creative process because it’s important that they hold on to their real reactions. This time what they were saying really made sense, so now the process is in the actual performance. I think of them as people who happen to be dancing, not dancers dancing.”
Brown, a veteran dancer of Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, self-produced her first solo show at the Joyce SoHo just two and a half years ago and has evolved considerably, both in breadth and intensity, since then. Not only can her voice now reach farther thanks to commissions by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard II and Philadanco, among others, but her voice itself is more defined.
“I can see my own voice when I’m creating and I know what I want,” Brown said. “And I always pray that people see my voice come out. I do ask for input from people whom I trust. Sometimes I take their suggestions and a lot of times I now don’t. I have to have confidence in my work, without being cocky.”
Cocky is the last thing Brown comes across as. The dancers she works with, for example, are all long-time friends and acquaintances whose participation it becomes clear she appreciates immensely. “We were friends before we were in this situation [of choreographer and dancers] and that helps a lot because as choreographer you put yourself in place of vulnerability,” Brown said. “I have to be able to ask ‘can you try this?’ without wondering what they’ll think. I think about it like a community. When you have great space things will flow, whether or not they work, things are still flowing.
Her modesty is equally apparent in her approach to audiences. “People are gonna take what they take from my work,” Brown said. “I try not to force people. It’s important that they get a story, but if they have a different interpretation, that’s cool.”
Through June 7.
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