Do not trifle with Camille A. Brown. The woman knows her mind, and her secure creative imprint has been felt, now, not only on dance stages but on television and Broadway. Ask her a question--as folks did during her audience dialogue at The Joyce's opening night for ink--and, without any hesitation, you get Direct Camille. Her movement might appear, to some, a chain of several interlocking dance genres, but it is not thoughtlessly or simplistically so. Nor can we shove it under a safe, defining label. What to call what she crafts in her work? "It's me," Brown says.
ink exemplifies that. For about 75 uninterrupted minutes, it energizes the Joyce stage under two weathered-looking billboards of collaged images designed by David L. Arsenault. There's the startling thwack of percussion that opens the evening, and a typically atypical solo for Brown whose raptor-like power, adept control of physical isolations and ability to adapt her shape to handle any environment or condition are markers for the intricacies of Black intelligence and creativity, skills for surviving and thriving under duress.
