Director and Choreographer Camille A. Brown Makes History at the Met and on Broadway
variety.comJazz Tangcay Artisans EditorBroadway choreographer Camille A. Brown has had a momentous few months. In September, she became the first Black artist to direct a main-stage production at the Metropolitan Opera, sharing directorial duties with James Robinson on “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which she also choreographed.
Now, she’s making history again with “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” which opened April 20, as the first Black woman since Katherine Dunham in 1955 to both direct and choreograph a Broadway play.For “Fire Shut Up,” which includes dance routines at the start of the second and third acts, Brown tapped into African American history by bringing step dance into the performance.
The story is based on Charles S. Blow’s memoirs about coming of age as a Black man in the South. For the opening of Act 3, when Charles is hazed as a fraternity pledge at Grambling State University, Brown used an intense step routine as a storytelling mechanism to show what the character is experiencing. “At one point, Black people weren’t allowed to perform on that [Metropolitan Opera] stage, and here we are doing something rooted in African American tradition,” Brown says.
Terence Blanchard, Spike Lee’s go-to composer, created the score, becoming the first Black composer at the 139-year-old Met.Incorporating step allowed Brown to display her versatility as a choreographer.
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