I AM
Continuing her explorations of Black Joy, director and choreographer Camille A. Brown creates a new work for her Company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers that launches new queries into the possibilities of imagination—and boldly investigates the future.
While Brown has often disrupted our understanding of the past, in this new work, she imagines a creative space for cultural liberation—conjuring new ways of being in this world. Inspired by the “I AM” episode of the HBO series, Lovecraft Country this new work picks up where ink left off by blasting us into the universe where anything is possible and features various dance genres of the African Diaspora.
Original music is by Deah Love Harriott, Jaylen Petinuad, Juliette Jones, and Martine Wade with projection design by Aaron Rhyne, set and lights by David Arsenault, sound design by Justin Ellington, and costumes by Asthley Solman.
Camille A. Brown is a three time Tony Award nominated director and choreographer whose work taps into both ancestral and contemporary stories to capture a range of deeply personal experiences and cultural narratives of African American identity. Through the medium of dance, she is successfully balancing careers in stage, TV, and film. Her trilogy on race, culture and identity has won many accolades including a Bessie Award. She was the first black director in the history of the Metropolitan Opera MainStage and has directed and choreographed numerous productions at the MET. TV & Film work includes the Academy Award nominated Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and NBC’s Emmy award winning Jesus Christ Superstar. Brown has been featured numerous times in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The NY Times, and the cover of Dance Magazine, among many others, and has received a myriad of awards including from the Guggenheim, Doris Duke Foundation, ISPA’s 2021 Distinguished Artist, 2020 Dance Magazine Award, Audelco, Princess Grace Statue Award, Jacob’s Pillow Award, New York City Center, TED fellow & The Kennedy Center’s Next 50. Other awards include a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship and the Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Choreography.
