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These days, many people know Camille A. Brown from the worlds of theater and opera, where she has become a frequent collaborator on high-profile projects. (She choreographed two hit shows now on Broadway, \u201cGypsy\u201d and \u201cHell\u2019s Kitchen.\u201d) But it\u2019s her work with her company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, that brings us closest to her essence as an artist, showing us who she is, what moves her.<\/p>\n
That has never been more clearly or piercingly expressed than in her latest dance, \u201cI AM,\u201d which had its New York City premiere at the Joyce Theater on Wednesday. Sweeping the audience into its flow for a joyous 65 minutes, \u201cI AM\u201d is like the exclamation point on the trilogy Brown created from 2012 to 2017 (\u201cMr. TOL E. RAncE,\u201d \u201cBLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play\u201d and \u201cink\u201d).<\/p>\n
A program note<\/a> describes \u201cI AM\u201d as imagining \u201ca creative space for cultural liberation \u2014 conjuring new ways of being in this world.\u201d And liberated it is, pulsing with a sense of freedom and possibility that emanates from its outstanding team of 12 dancers and three musicians (Deah Love Harriott on piano, Juliette Jones on violin and Jaylen Petinaud on drums).<\/p>\n Brown went to great lengths to contextualize the works in the trilogy, which delved into different facets of African-American identity, like the painful legacies of minstrelsy and the playful rituals of Black girlhood. The first two chapters came with educational resource guides, and Brown regularly led post-show dialogues as extensions of the work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In \u201cI AM,\u201d she continues her signature interweaving of African diasporic dance forms, but with what seems like a greater, bolder openness to letting dance \u2014 in deep conversation with music \u2014 speak for itself. After Wednesday\u2019s performance, she shared just a brief word of explanation: \u201cI wanted to do something centered around joy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The joy that courses through \u201cI AM\u201d is not merely happy or celebratory; it\u2019s more complex, multidimensional. It starts to simmer with the first sound of the drum, a marching-band roil that evolves into lush original arrangements of R&B, club and hip-hop classics. As the lights come up, pairs of dancers \u2014 anchored by the indefatigable Onyxx Noel and Destini Hendricks \u2014 come surging forward through a blanket of fog, imprinting the space with shimmying shoulders, thrusting chests, popping hips. It\u2019s as if majorette dancing met Twyla Tharp\u2019s \u201cIn the Upper Room,\u201d and it\u2019s electric.<\/p>\n The 12 sections of \u201cI AM\u201d somehow sustain this energy, with a few dips into gentler or sultrier moods. In \u201cThrowback #1,\u201d the charismatic Miki Michelle, flanked by two guys, could be the star of a \u201990s music video. To a version of \u201cPapa Was a Rollin\u2019 Stone,\u201d Curtis Thomas works himself into spiritual fervor, encouraged by his fellow dancers. In an ecstatic and tender duet, Brianna Dawkins and Courtney Ross are similarly overtaken by the music.<\/p>\n Gestures of praise appear often throughout the work \u2014 hearts lifted or fingers pointed to the sky \u2014 alongside flashes of Lindy Hop, voguing, stepping, breaking and a host of other styles and traditions. Geometric lighting projections create an atmosphere that is at once retro and futuristic. Especially in large-group sections, Brown organizes the space with an assuredness she has always possessed, but one that comes into even sharper focus here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This goes for her own transporting solo, too. When she makes her entrance toward the end, the instrumental music momentarily gives way to a robotic, echoey voice, a reference to the HBO series \u201cLovecraft Country<\/a>.\u201d (\u201cI AM\u201d takes inspiration, and its title, from an episode of the show.) \u201cName yourself,\u201d the voice says. \u201cYou are not in a prison.\u201d<\/p>\n At first, Brown appears to balance vulnerability with self-protection, one hand reaching forward, palm open, the other pulled back in a fist. But as the solo progresses, she gives herself so fully over to the music, whether gobbling up the stage with big stomping steps or lyrically mirroring the violinist, she seems to inhabit an alternate plane \u2014 while also really having fun.<\/p>\n The joy of \u201cI AM\u201d is the joy of being entirely yourself, entirely present in the moment. We are here, Brown and the performers seem to say \u2014 and we\u2019ll keep being here, together, dancing into the future.<\/p>\n Camille A. Brown\u2019s \u201cI AM.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Through Sunday at the Joyce Theater. joyce.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n