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Camille A. Brown had a lot to do. In 2019 St. He was not part of the original creative team behind Terence Blanchard’s opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” when it was performed in St. But at the Metropolitan Opera, where Production continues until Saturday. – For the first time in its 138-year history, a Black composer’s work was presented there – his touch is palpable.
Obviously, he caught it. And it’s also making history: Sharing directing duties with James Robinson, Brown is the first Black artist to direct a Met production. He is also the choreographer of opera, and thus brought social dance—the percussion form historically popular in Black colleges and universities (HBCU), to the Met scene.
Opening Act III is a step number that stops the show in its tracks. On the opening night, the dancers took their final poses, one foot crossed over the other as sweat poured from their faces. They froze in a line facing the audience, trying to control their breathing as the audience applauded and roared. And he clapped and roared some more. It took over a minute and it was amazing.
when was the last time a dance stopped an opera on its way? Brown is a Tony-nominated dance producer who choreographed “Porgy and Bess” Under Robinson’s rule at the Met, she had never experienced anything like it.
“I was just excited,” he said. “I was excited for a moment. I was excited for social dancing. I was so excited for the dancers on stage who worked for six weeks to put this show together.”
He added: “I feel like the audience applauded – for me – for a number of reasons. It was about dancing, but about what it means to see it on stage. And legacy.”
His use of the step and body as a percussion instrument speaks to the Black experience: When their drums were taken away, enslaved people created rhythm with their bodies. In the opera, my name enters the picture when the main character Charles (Will Liverman) is a college student and promises the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. She also continues to grapple with the experience of being abused by her older cousin as a young child, seen in flashbacks. (The opera is based on his memory in 2014. New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow.)
While Act I doesn’t include any actual dance, the characters move around the stage with a lively texture – both rich and authentically casual, the pedestrian movements recognizably Brown. Along with the step number Brown, II. He choreographed another great dance that opens the curtain and shows Charles surrounded by dancers going in and out of erotic moments. Full of tension and longing, it reveals the mood of the character: confused and anguished, but also intriguing.
Brown is a master at spreading emotions throughout the body. The dancers, with their arms stretched out as if begging, move lively and broadly as if they are washing the stage with their brushstrokes. They then become trees, as Charles put it: “We draw our strength from below. We bend, we don’t break. We sway!”
As he sings, Charles twists his body forward with a powerful contraction and, standing upright, spreads his arms, finally overcoming the pain.
In “Fire,” which will be released in theaters on October 23 as part of Met Live in HD, Brown presents his choreographic series. “There was the more contemporary dance side and then there was the more rhythmic side,” he said. “You don’t feel these extremes in one place very often.”
And his directing talent is only growing. Next? he manages Broadway revival related to Ntozake Shange’s “For Girls of Color Contemplating Suicide/Rainbow Enough”. Recently, Brown talked about her work on “Fire” and honoring her ancestors. The following are edited excerpts from this talk.
How did you envision opera as a choreographer and director?
When I’m working on a show and as the manager of my company I always try to find out, what is my entry point into the story? I thought of some dear friends with very similar stories, and that’s how I went in.
When I first heard about the opera and learned that there was a fraternity section, I was very excited. There is an opportunity to tap dance in it. opera?
Why is it so important to put the social dance on the Met scene?
We’re talking about Terence being the first Black composer on the Met stage. And with that comes the Black lens and with that he Black culture comes, which is spoken or danced through the black lens. And knowing that at one point in the Met’s history Blacks were not allowed to perform on that stage.
So you’re going from here to the present: we’re doing something very rooted in African tradition on the Met stage. It is too strong. You see the fraternity, you see the HBCU, but at the same time Juba dance [the African-American percussive form that uses the feet and the hands]. And you see the African diaspora on stage.
How did you put the number together?
I was inspired by two movies: “Drumline” and “School Daze”. I’ve always loved “School Daze” and when this opportunity arose to create the atmosphere of brotherhood, I thought it had to be a moment. Yes, Charles promises and he’s having that experience, but it’s also important to show as much as we can what this whole experience is, especially being on the Met stage.
I want to talk about dream ballet. Shall I say so?
[Laughs] Yes, yes, this is absolutely fine.
What were you thinking?
In any show I do, there’s always one part that’s been really hard for me. And that’s what you call dream ballet. The first two weeks of working on it I was a little scared because I didn’t like what I was doing.
What happened?
I was talking about “Moonlight” with my co-director, James Robinson, and how Charles grappled with what we call ghosts in his dreams and how it bothered him, but also seduced him. So I gave myself a break and stopped criticizing myself and said, You know what? Just play. Give yourself space to understand this.
How did “Moonlight” affect you?
Only with beautiful images. I just want to talk about relationships and tenderness and how does it feel to touch someone for the first time? Feeling like it’s wrong, but wanting to trust that it’s okay.
How involved were you in the first act?
It can be easy for someone to come and go, Oh, well, he just did the choreography. But that wasn’t really the case. James and I were thinking about the harassment scene and how the choir interacted.
Most of the choir members were also in “Porgy” so I had already worked with them. we were talking about how them they’re moving because even though they’re not technically dancing, they’re still moving. And the 1970s. We looked at some of the videos and talked: What were the little paths people took to mark the time zone?
NS Katherine Dunham On your mind throughout this experience?
Ah! Why are you asking?
Your use of social dance and Choreographed at the Met. And because much of this opera is rooted in the body as a force. Urgent. It made me think of your lineage.
I always carry her and Pearl Primus, Dianne McIntyre and Marlies Yearby in space. This is a historic moment, but it’s also about the people who paved the way for you. It comes from a deep place – it comes from social dancing. How can I contribute to the legacy of Black choreographers studying the African diasporic space? It’s about contributing to the field. When we do what we know and show how honest we are in our decisions, it is honoring our ancestors.
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