Workshop: Deepening Engagement with a Work of Art - Excerpts of Camille A. Brown’s ink
Part 1: Engaging with a Work of Art
Teaching Artist Yvonne Winborne facilitates an inquiry-based workshop using art-making, questioning, reflection, and contextual information to delve into key elements of a dance work of art, using excerpts from choreographer Camille A. Brown’s ink (2012) as a case study. The introductory workshop is followed by a viewing of excerpts from a performance of Brown’s work.
Part 2: Viewing a Work of Art
A piece for six dancers, ink celebrates the rituals, gestural vocabulary, and traditions that remain ingrained within the lineage of the African Diaspora and reclaims African-American narratives by showcasing their authenticity. The work examines the culture of Black life that is often appropriated, rewritten, or silenced. In collaboration with Music Director Allison Miller, percussionist Wilson Torres, violinist Juliette Jones, and composer/pianist Scott Patterson, ink is the final installation of Brown’s dance theatre trilogy about identity.
Part 3: Active Reflection on a Work of Art
Lincoln Center teaching artists lead a guided, small group reflection on participants’ individual engagement with the dance performance. What did you notice? What connections did you make? What questions does the work of art provoke? What meaning are you making? The reflection is followed by a sharing of Lincoln Center Education’s inquiry-based approach and how to incorporate aspects into participants’ existing teaching practice.
Biography
Dancer and choreographer Camille A. Brown is a Tony Award nominee, five-time Princess Grace Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow, TED Fellow, and Doris Duke Artist Award recipient. Her Bessie award–winning company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers (CABD), tours nationally and internationally.
Her Broadway and Off-Broadway theater and television credits include: Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy, the Broadway revival of Once On This Island, Toni Stone, Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert on NBC, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Fortress of Solitude, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, and the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing. Ms. Brown is also the choreographer of The Metropolitan Opera’s Porgy & Bess. She will make her feature film debut in the soon-to-be-released Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, directed by George C. Wolfe (Netflix). Brown will make her directorial debut with Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Westport Country Playhouse in July 2021.
