BECKET — In the immortal words of Cyndi Lauper: Girls, they wanna have fun — and that goes for girls of all colors, the choreographer Camille A. Brown reminds us triumphantly in her 2015 “BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play,” performed by Camille A. Brown & Dancers at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival through the weekend. Exhausted by the one-dimensional categorizations too frequently laid on black women — “angry black female” or “strong black female,” take your pick — Brown set out to create a dance celebrating, simply, the ways children in general, and black girls in particular, play.
Simplicity is the guiding principle: Brown and four other women perform on designer Elizabeth Nelson’s handsome, straightforward set of multilevel platforms. Burke Wilmore’s subtle lighting is effective, shadowy without being ominous. Placed onstage, pianist Scott Patterson and bassist Robin Bramlett blend in, and the ambient/funky/bluesy score, largely featuring original music by Patterson and Tracy Wormworth, is integral to the work.