Today, many individuals know Camille A. Brown from the worlds of theater and opera, the place she has turn out to be a frequent collaborator on high-profile initiatives. (She choreographed two hit exhibits now on Broadway, “Gypsy” and “Hell’s Kitchen.”) However it’s her work along with her firm, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, that brings us closest to her essence as an artist, displaying us who she is, what strikes her.
That has by no means been extra clearly or piercingly expressed than in her newest dance, “I AM,” which had its New York Metropolis premiere on the Joyce Theater on Wednesday. Sweeping the viewers into its move for a joyous 65 minutes, “I AM” is just like the exclamation level on the trilogy Brown created from 2012 to 2017 (“Mr. TOL E. RAncE,” “BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play” and “ink”).
A program observe describes “I AM” as imagining “a artistic area for cultural liberation — conjuring new methods of being on this world.” And liberated it’s, pulsing with a way of freedom and risk that emanates from its excellent crew of 12 dancers and three musicians (Deah Love Harriott on piano, Juliette Jones on violin and Jaylen Petinaud on drums).
Brown went to nice lengths to contextualize the works within the trilogy, which delved into totally different sides of African-American id, just like the painful legacies of minstrelsy and the playful rituals of Black girlhood. The primary two chapters got here with instructional useful resource guides, and Brown usually led post-show dialogues as extensions of the work.
In “I AM,” she continues her signature interweaving of African diasporic dance types, however with what looks like a larger, bolder openness to letting dance — in deep dialog with music — communicate for itself. After Wednesday’s efficiency, she shared only a temporary phrase of rationalization: “I needed to do one thing centered round pleasure.”
The enjoyment that programs by “I AM” will not be merely glad or celebratory; it’s extra complicated, multidimensional. It begins to simmer with the primary sound of the drum, a marching-band roil that evolves into lush unique preparations of R&B, membership and hip-hop classics. Because the lights come up, pairs of dancers — anchored by the indefatigable Onyxx Noel and Destini Hendricks — come surging ahead by a blanket of fog, imprinting the area with shimmying shoulders, thrusting chests, popping hips. It’s as if majorette dancing met Twyla Tharp’s “Within the Higher Room,” and it’s electrical.
The 12 sections of “I AM” in some way maintain this vitality, with just a few dips into gentler or sultrier moods. In “Throwback #1,” the charismatic Miki Michelle, flanked by two guys, may very well be the star of a ’90s music video. To a model of “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” Curtis Thomas works himself into religious fervor, inspired by his fellow dancers. In an ecstatic and tender duet, Brianna Dawkins and Courtney Ross are equally overtaken by the music.
Gestures of reward seem typically all through the work — hearts lifted or fingers pointed to the sky — alongside flashes of Lindy Hop, voguing, stepping, breaking and a bunch of different kinds and traditions. Geometric lighting projections create an environment that’s directly retro and futuristic. Particularly in large-group sections, Brown organizes the area with an assuredness she has all the time possessed, however one which comes into even sharper focus right here.
This goes for her personal transporting solo, too. When she makes her entrance towards the tip, the instrumental music momentarily offers method to a robotic, echoey voice, a reference to the HBO sequence “Lovecraft Nation.” (“I AM” takes inspiration, and its title, from an episode of the present.) “Title your self,” the voice says. “You aren’t in a jail.”
At first, Brown seems to stability vulnerability with self-protection, one hand reaching ahead, palm open, the opposite pulled again in a fist. However because the solo progresses, she offers herself so absolutely over to the music, whether or not gobbling up the stage with massive stomping steps or lyrically mirroring the violinist, she appears to inhabit an alternate aircraft — whereas additionally actually having enjoyable.
The enjoyment of “I AM” is the enjoyment of being completely your self, completely current within the second. We’re right here, Brown and the performers appear to say — and we’ll hold being right here, collectively, dancing into the long run.
Camille A. Brown’s “I AM.”
By Sunday on the Joyce Theater. joyce.org