Camille Brown in conversation with Rashida Bumbray

RB: Thank you Camille, for talking to me.  I was so incredibly moved by the piece.

CB: That’s great.  I’m really happy you were moved, because I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be. People were saying, “Well, why is that? Because you’ve done it 4 times.” And we’ve gotten the same type of reaction to it–very emotional, very intense–which is great, but coming to New York is just different. I try explaining to people that it’s not like Revelations, that’s been done for 50 years, where you know the emotions, you know all the stuff.  This piece is about race and not everyone likes talking about race.  It’s a topic like religion, things can get really intense, people are coming from different perspectives. You don’t know how people are going to respond to what you’re saying and what you’re not saying.

RB: First of all it’s really brave and really radical for you to make that work and to take everybody on that journey.  While there have been ways, for example Bamboozled and Tongues Untied, that we have been looking at, basically, the beginnings of black entertainment in the new world, it still strikes such an intense chord in people’s consciousness and I think anytime you pull that out it’s a huge risk. I’m thankful to you for having that level of bravery in your work and for holding other people accountable, because essentially that’s what I think is happening.

CB: Thank you Rashida, that means a lot. It’s been a hard piece and a very scary piece and I’ve had a lot of doubt. I just had these ideas and I didn’t know how to put them together, so I tried to really rely on my instincts because that’s all I had.  Ideas started developing, and connections, and then the thing that came up was “This is a huge piece that you’re doing, do you have the talent to really pull it off?”  I don’t want to step into something and not be able to do it, because I feel like I’m holding myself accountable too.

RB: Well you all are beyond capable.  One of the things that is so seductive about it, and so radical, is the way that you and the dancers simultaneously put on these characterizations from throughout history:  early vaudeville, silent film, the history of comedy, ‘80s sitcoms. The piece does zoom into those moments individually, but there’s a way that you’ve created a new vocabulary, a new language that takes this continuum of history into consideration. That strategy of combining physical gesture that is so loaded, it really complicates the one-dimensional notions of race that we have.

CB: One of the things that shapes the piece is that sometimes people will say “Oh my god, what if you did comedy? It would be really cool if you did this Richard Pryor  thing.” This whole entertainment thing was in my head, but I am a dancer, we are dancers. Trying to recreate these people just didn’t make sense, so if I’m going to do it I’m going to bring them out and display something that is real. I don’t want people to come in and see us doing these impersonations and then they laugh and then that’s it. There’s a path.  Reading the Mel Watkins book [On the Real Side],  it didn’t come from the stage, it came from the plantation and the community, how we interact with each other, it came from a social act.  I said “That’s the place where I want it to come from.” It became something superficial on the stage, but also very real too, it’s a real situation.

RB: It’s so interesting, that’s the other rich through line, the way that the dancers interact with each other. It’s like an internal conversation that we’ve been let in on. But we’re also so familiar with it, we know what it is. It does play to the fact that we have this history of entertainment, and that’s a choice, how we’ve presented ourselves in that realm, but we also have this history of the way we’ve used these forms as survival tactics. That’s the underlying carrier in the piece, that those interactions really push the humanity. There can be a sort of flattening out that can happen if you are only dealing with stereotype. The humanity in that, I think, is way bigger than the stereotype.

CB: We try to embrace it too, because there are people who want a definitive ending, like, “What are you saying, that the stereotypes are bad, or that they’re good?” But I’m not saying either.  Our history is too beautiful and complex to have a definite answer.

RB: Absolutely. I just want to go back a little bit and ask you, you said that the piece had been on your spirit for a long time, but when was Mr. TOL E. RAncE born, when did you decide to actually make the leap to make the work?

CB: It started about 2 years ago, from this feeling that I had personally of being restricted and frustrated and stressed.  It felt like my life was this game, that in order to push my career forward, people would tell me to show up to parties and interact with people, and I thought, “Why do I have to do all of that? Why can’t I just show my work?” I just didn’t feel like smiling and doing the tap dance.  That’s one aspect of it. And then Bamboozled,  we watch it every year, and I think it’s just a fantastic concept, it’s like a ritual. Every time it comes on you watch it. So there’s that. And then I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, J. Michael Kinsey,  who is one of the contributors, about the rise of this crazy reality TV thing and how every time you think it can’t get worse there’s something crazy that comes on the air. We started talking about the time before we had TVs, when we didn’t have choices, and now we do. How much of it can we point to other people and how much do we have to point at ourselves? And how much of it is a trap? There’s not that many opportunities for black females to act, you know…

So all of these things combined, and at first I wanted to do something about the first black performer on Broadway, and then a friend of mine gave me the book by Mel Watkins and said, “There’s a chapter on vaudeville.”  It was like page 120 or something and it started talking about the plantation and where comedy was birthed, things that I didn’t know, about where it really came from. I knew that we were on the plantation and we entertained, but just how all that came about, and how we’re still trapped in that but just re-issued to modern day stereotypes, and I started making the connection. The initial material, the first couple of sections I created were just very straightforward, straight minstrelsy, and my agent said, “Well that’s great, but how are you going to make this relevant to today?” and I thought, “Oh my god, what do you mean, I can’t just talk about this?!” I could talk about this for a year, but you have to make people understand why you’re talking about it.  So, let me go back. I started thinking about all the stuff that had been frustrating me, started making connections and said, “Yeah, we are reissuing stereotypes, we have seen this before, we just don’t know it. We just haven’t made those connections, but its still here.”  That’s when I started putting it together and saying “Okay, that’s the idea I want to do.” I also want to celebrate, because it’s so complex.  I don’t want to invite stereotypes, because it’s not just about that, it’s about embracing who you are. Those were the only roles we had–we were slaves–that’s how we got our comedy and it was a survival tactic.  I want to celebrate that, to celebrate all those brilliant people–it’s just so complex.

RB: The other thing I was thinking was that in your work I feel like history always appears, and thinking about Matchstick,  I just love how you situated that in time–1915, you said, 50 years after the Civil War and 50 years before the Civil Rights Movement.  The thing that I pictured in my mind, the thing that comes forth is that these 4 or 5 black men have an overwhelming amount of dignity, and there’s a way in which the vocabulary that you created, your choreographic vocabulary, is imbued with dignity. When I think about The Evolution of a Secured Feminine  and the piece that you did for your grandmother, Mary,  the dignity is at the forefront. With this work, there’s a way in which these major historical stereotypes from the vaudeville era, that are still being performed in popular culture today, you could look at them and say, “Oh this represents the antithesis of dignity.”  But what I witnessed in the rehearsal, which is true in life, is that we found a way to have the humanity present even while playing these roles. The way you and the dancers dive deep into these characters, there’s a recognition of a chain of transmission, that you’re standing in the legacy of these black performers and entertainers, even while they were steeped in stereotype.  It was a survival tactic–they were on the front lines of social and political struggle. We think about segregating the schools, but black performers went into these all-white spaces, spaces that were filled with racism and terrorism, essentially, and especially the comedians that you’re referencing: Williams and Walker and Josephine Baker, Dick Gregory…  I think that I was really moved by the way you allowed for a certain humanity, by giving that space for the emotion and spirit even within the sadness. I talked about that a bit when I saw the rehearsal, but that underlying sadness carried it. It’s also a recognition of that sacrifice that people made so you can make what you want to make right now. You can decide to make a work that may be controversial, scary, risky; you have that freedom because people played roles that were thought of as not dignified, but we know otherwise.

CB: Yeah, and also one of the other inspirations is the whole Dave Chappelle  story, that he was offered this million dollars and he turned it down.  That’s what Waldean Nelson’s solo is based on–how we always see people in entertainment making us laugh, healing us, but we don’t know what they’re going through.  Especially comedians, a lot of their stuff came from pain. A lot of these people are depressed, alcoholics, suffering and trying to make their own selves heal, but in the process of making us heal they are killing their own spirit. With Dave Chappelle it was like, “He’s crazy, why did he do that it’s just a million dollars?” but nothing’s worth your spirit and your soul, looking back 20 years later thinking that you perpetuated that crazy stereotype. It’s troubling. I have a lot of respect for him because there are a lot of people who can’t do that, who fall into, “That’s a lot of money and I have to pay this and that…” but it’s not worth it. I wanted to honor that and celebrate that courageousness, like you said, that dignity, because it takes a lot. He was attacked, and to walk away, his spirit must have been going through something crazy for him to do that. I think once that happens it’s not about you anymore, it’s about the legacy, your ancestors, all those things, all of that stuff started coming up for him, and he had to make a decision. It’s about choices now, or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know, it’s so complex.  You can say it’s about choices now, but…  Black females in general, we always say that we don’t get as much exposure or many opportunities, so it’s hard, we have very few choices still.

Rashida: It’s true.

CB: People always want to bring up, “But Obama is in office, why are we still talking about race?” But there are still questions of if he was born here, his birth certificate; race is still on the table. Racism is still here.

RB: And it’s really a resurgence.

CB: Even more, I think! Even more. I feel now people are more vocal about their hatred, and I think social media has enabled us, especially YouTube.  Some of those comments under videos are even crazier than the videos they post.  I think there’s this thing of people not being able to see you.  You can create this whole identity, and that gives you the freedom to say what you really want to say, that you wouldn’t say in public, and it’s really detrimental.

RB: It’s scary, it’s a form of terrorism, essentially. Trying to intimidate people, scare people.  I was at conference, Black Male Reimagined II where Van Jones  was talking about when Henry Louis Gates  was arrested for being in his own house and Barack Obama said it was foolish… Even though he is the most powerful man in the world, you know, on many levels, he had to have a beer meeting, or whatever it was called, a beer conversation with that police officer, who was clearly nowhere near as powerful as he was, but because of the racial dynamic he had to sit across the table from this man because people were angry that he had made an honest statement about the way the most famous professor at Harvard was treated. The way that race operates, the whole idea of a post-racial Obama era, is maybe someone’s wishful thinking, but nowhere near close to reality.

CB: No.

RB: The other thing–thinking about Bamboozled again…you talk about that sort of grounding you.  I feel like the technique that he used in that film, around the way that the audience becomes implicated, happens in your work.  By going directly to that historical stereotype and bringing it all the way through to Sweet Brown  and Antoine Dodson  you really do allow all of us to see things as witnesses; we don’t have permission to be voyeurs anymore, we’re not let off the hook. It’s similar to the way that the audience in Bamboozled eventually become real live coons themselves.

CB: Yeah, but sometimes we have the habit of being voyeurs. Everybody knows Sweet Brown and Antoine Dodson, we all shared, we all laughed at it, and that’s real. I’m going to show you something you have no choice but to acknowledge because it’s in your face everyday.  That’s what makes it a historic piece but also a very current piece. I also didn’t want it to be something that was didactic in nature, I didn’t want to teach people about minstrelsy. I didn’t want it to be that, I wanted to tell my story and our story and open the floor for dialogue.

RB: You really do that, and the fact that you’re going to have a talkback after every show allows people to have a conversation, because that is a hard work to walk away from. You can have a talk with whomever you came with, but there’s an important quality to having that conversation already in place. I came home to my husband and said, “She’s really going there.” [Laughter] It stays with you, I’m glad that you had the foresight to put these talkbacks in place. I think it’s going to be really necessary.

CB: Because what’s the point? It becomes a show; it doesn’t become minstrelsy, but a form of entertainment. But it’s social commentary too, and what is going to be the purpose of it if we all disperse and have our own separate dialogues and our separate emotions? The talkbacks that we’ve had after the shows have been so intense, I really have to think about how I’m going to work through it; it’s a lot of emotions during the show and during the conversations. I’m trying to figure out how to deal with that, but I think it’s necessary.  I got an email from one of the audience members in Oregon, she wanted me to think about whether having a talkback would be healthy for me, because it’s a lot to give, but I feel like it’s necessary. It’s important. I don’t want to put my spirit on the line, and I don’t think I’m doing that, but you have to see it all the way through if you’re going to do a piece like this, that’s part of it. I told the dancers that they don’t have to go every night, it is very emotional and sometimes you just don’t feel like talking.  They have that choice of when they want to stay or not, but I don’t. [Laughter]

RB: I was going to ask, how do you prepare? And maybe that’s not something that you have to share, but I feel it is important. How do you get ready to be up there?  Because it really is a guerilla way of making performance.

CB: Well, the dancers have this saying, they say this piece is like jumping out of a plane–you either go all the way or you don’t do it at all.  That’s what I think about when I’m preparing; just being bold, brave, courageous, don’t worry about what people are thinking, because it is something that is very new for me to do, in a sense, and it is very political.  You don’t know what people are going to think. I have to focus building myself up, because the piece isn’t going to fly if I get onstage and subconsciously… it’s just not going to work.

RB: You have to be vulnerable.

CB: And, in a sense, I have to not care what people think.  That’s hard, because I’m performing, I’m showing this piece, obviously I want people to like it, but you just have to say, “Look, this is what it is, this is what I’m doing.” The dancers are the ones who have helped me see this thing through.  I’ve been so doubtful, so scared so many times, and they are the ones saying, “We got you. We got your back. We know what you’re doing, we believe in what you’re doing,” and that’s what makes us go out there and say, “Okay, let’s do it.” I don’t know if you saw, I pulled them over to the side before the run through and I was giving a pep talk, “Okay, now is the time to really start doing the piece, we have people really in our faces now, we have to just do it for ourselves,” and their energy when they came on was so ON and it got me really hyped.  Watching them inspires me. There’s a little mini clip we play with Bert Williams and some minstrel videos, and all of us watch it every time, and it is so amazing to watch it and so beautiful and so sad and so happy. Once you’re in it, you’re in it, that’s just it.

RB: I just want to ask one more question, about the music and your collaboration with the composer. I know you have a relationship working together and I would love to hear a little bit more about how you conceptualized the music for this piece.

CB: This is actually my first time working with Scott  on a project, and he’s just so great. I met with him and explained the concept–it was really important to me to have people on the team who got it, and it wasn’t just about a gig–and he really got it.  We had all these conversations and dialogue about it, and I said, “Okay, let’s do this.” I would ask him, “Can you just make a beat,” and he would come up with something and riff on that, and I would say “We need to change here, we need to change there, to align better with the dance.”  He is just so intuitive and really connected with the story, and he really is just great. He’s amazing.

RB: I like that he is really integrated into the set, the piano is a key piece in terms of the dance, and it feels very collaborative in terms of the way he is watching the performance while he is playing.  It’s like a jazz approach even though he is playing a lot of different forms of music.

CB: I just didn’t want it to be him there on the side, playing and never having any interaction or relationship.  I wanted us all to be characters in it, including the piano. I really tried to do that every chance I got.

RB: The music really carries the emotionality in an interesting way.  He really taps into that sadness that we talked about.

CB: Yeah he does.

RB: He’s really in tune, and that collaboration really makes a lot of the piece.

CB: Most of the time our process consists of, obviously, creating–but sometimes it’s about having a lot of discussions…dancing and talking for like two hours. It raised a lot of questions–dancers had questions that led to discussions–we watched a lot of things, we watched Bamboozled together, that kind of thing. You have to know what you’re saying. People have said, “I’ve never seen so many dancers doing the Q&A.”  We talked about this stuff in rehearsal, so it’s them answering questions about a point that was raised in the room. This is our piece, it’s our company, it’s our work, so I don’t want it to be just me talking about it.

RB: They’re bringing so much individual approach also.  For instance, Mora-Amina Parker–it’s so interesting how she embodies this.  You see Josephine Baker and a video vixen simultaneously in her body and even just her eyes… You see this historical continuum in her approach, and that, I feel, is happening with each dancer. I pointed it out because of the way she approached her eyes like a stop motion film but…they’re all really bringing their own interpretation to the movement.

CB: We’ll show each other things that we found on the Internet, people will bring things in…they are not just dealing with it during rehearsal, it’s with them, and I love that. It makes me think that it’s not just something I want to say and I’m making them say it too, you know, we’re all saying the same thing. I think that’s what makes the piece strong, because we all have a voice in it, we all have…

RB: An investment.

CB: Yeah. I love them. They’re great.

RB: And also, everyone knows how high the stakes are; you can see that in the approach.

CB: Yeah, I think we all know.  It’s so important to really go there when it is time, because it won’t come across unless you do. We all know now that clarity is the key, and making sure that you go all the way.

RB: I’m really thankful to you for making this work and challenging the community to understand where we are in history, and also that the stakes are high and that we are making choices every day to participate, to challenge, to be critical, to stand up for our own dignity, as we talked about. I feel like bravery inspires bravery, so I’m really thankful to you and to the dancers.