After studying the materials related to the works of Camille A. Brown, I was very much interested to know about how much impact has her work has on people who have witnessed it? What are the interpretations of people who have viewed her remarkable plays? I’m assuming that we would have a range of meanings that we synthesized from watching her performances with the dancers. Would people who do not experience “Blackness” or black experience relate to her work and experience the impact that she intended on them. Or would African American audience interpret her works as intended?

Camille’s work revolves mostly in depicting her personal experience as a black female through raw movements and voice. What I meant by raw here is, both elements are portrayed based on her personality which is shaped by her African American roots.

In portraying the authentic experience of the African American co0mmunity in her work, Camille has done a brilliant work in bringing up social issues that maybe most people in the country don’t dare to discuss. Her work allows people to “feel” what they might be scared to feel, “say” what they don’t dare to say and “admit” what they have been trying to deny. There are a lot of social injustice happening in the States and this is evident in what we can see for years that “Black Americans, and black men in particular, are overrepresented as perpetrators of crimes in U.S. news media” (Sun, 2019). Not only crimes, social injustice also covers other forms of discrimination such as in education and housing. Camille managed to get the essence of social injustice in the African American community and she protests to these according to what she does best – being unapologetic in her movements and choreographic form. When I witnessed her work last Friday, I was moved, educated and left the hall with a better understanding of the African American culture, identity and experience. Her work, simply educates everyone and to quote from Mandela “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

In relation to the work we are currently doing with MK and Free, I noticed that they have the same drive and passion. To be unapologetically truthful via movements and arts. There is no negativity that I could sense but, an intelligent use of one’s choreographic forms and experience to create change and to educate people. This kind of work requires a community to ensure its success and to leave an impactful experience to their cause.

References

Sun, E. (2018). The dangerous realization of crimes in U.S. news media. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/news/2018/08/29/455313/dangerous-racialization-crime-u-s-news-media/