patterns
like a dust-heavy bee retracing
its travels
in scale before the hive. —Gregory
Pardlo, “Double Dutch”
 |
| Camille A. Brown & Dancers in "Second Line" photo by Christopher Duggan |
As a little
girl I would watch my mom dance to popular music in the house, I kept asking,
“how do you find the beat? Can you teach
me those steps? She said, “just keep listening to the sounds until your body
moves with it.” She also decided to enroll me in local Saturday morning dance
classes. As I read through The Games Black Girls Play by Dr. Kyra
Gaunt I felt a cadence with my early childhood experiences in dance, music and
play. She states, “Every day black girls generate and pass on a unique repertoire
of chants and embodied rhythms in their play that both reflects and inspires
the prince of black popular music making.”
It is the power of play at its best where relationships, connections and
friendships find roots.
 |
| Set design by Elizabeth C. Nelson; Burke Wilmer, lighting design. |
#BlackGirlLP is a collective, collaborative, creative force of energy in dance and music — where the games African American girls still play takes center stage in contemporary form.
“#BlackGirlLP uses the rhythmic play of
African-American dance vernacular - including social dancing, double dutch,
steppin’, tap, Juba, ring shout, and gesture - as the black woman’s domain to
evoke childhood memories of self-discovery.”
—Camille A, Brown
As I sat
there in The Joyce Theater I remembered my Saturday mornings in dance class where
for the first half hour our group would sit down on the dance floor with legs
folded, heads up, dressed in our required black leotards and tights with
composition notebooks. We learned to
pronounce, spell and memorize the names of positions to be practiced for the day,
but interpretative dance was our last session — a time of African drums and other
rhythms to move through improvisational playful moves. My first dance lessons
involved visual cues and listening for sound rhythms. It was my first
kinesthetic learning lab experience. It
was also another kind of playtime.
Camille A. Brown with Tracy Wormworth in BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (excerpt) from Camille A. Brown & Dancers on Vimeo.
#BlackGirlLP pulls at the power of play with dance to move us beyond and with language. There is also a reference guide in the program and online. Black Girl: Linguistic Play will also move through a national tour. I hope you are moved to see an upcoming #BlackGirlLP performance, listen to the music as well as read up for self-discovery and your enjoyment.
