[Entertainment News\Theater]
The Joyce Theater welcomes the return of Camille A. Brown & Dancers for the conclusion of choreographer Camille A. Brown’s trilogy on Black identity by taking it back to where it all started. Inspired by Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Mel Watkins’s book On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy from Slavery to Chris Rock, Mr. TOL E. RAncE is the first of three installments that uses rhythm, sound, and movement to explore the Black American experience.
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Following its world premiere presentation of BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, and the New York premiere of ink, The Joyce Theater Foundation (Linda Shelton, Executive Director) welcomes back Camille A. Brown & Dancers for an exclusive engagement of Mr. TOL E. RAncE.
This Bessie Award-winning production, which began Camille A. Brown’s trilogy on Black identity, will play The Joyce Theater for three performances only from November 9-10. Tickets, ranging in price from $10-$55, can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org.
Continuing a long-standing relationship with one of the world’s most in-demand choreographers, The Joyce Theater welcomes the return of Camille A. Brown & Dancers for the conclusion of choreographer Camille A. Brown’s trilogy on black identity by taking it back to where it all started. Inspired by Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Mel Watkins’s book On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy from Slavery to Chris Rock, Mr. TOL E. RAncE is the first of three installments that uses rhythm, sound, and movement to explore the Black American experience.
Through a unique combination of comedy, animation, theater, dance, and soul-stirring live music by Scott Patterson, Mr. TOL E. RAncE celebrates the African-American performer by revealing their endurance and perseverance. By blending and contrasting the contemporary with the historic, this poignant piece shines a light on stereotypes that have dominated popular black culture, including examples of minstrelsy that are still tolerated today. Each performance of Mr. TOL E. RAncE will conclude with “The Dialogue,” a signature experience since 2012 in which both artists of Camille A. Brown & Dancers and audience can decompress and process reactions through open discussion.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Camille A. Brown (Choreographer & Artistic Director) is a prolific Black female choreographer reclaiming the cultural narrative of African American identity. Her bold work taps into both ancestral stories and contemporary culture to capture a range of deeply personal experiences. Ms. Brown is a four-time Princess Grace Award winner, a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award winner, Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and TED Fellow, among others. Her work has been commissioned by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Broadway theaters, and other prominent institutions. As Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown and Dancers, Ms. Brown strives to instill curiosity and reflection in diverse audiences through her emotionally raw and thought-provoking work. Her driving passion is to empower Black bodies to tell their story using their own language(s) through movement and dialogue. Through the company, Ms. Brown provides outreach activities to students, young adults, and incarcerated women and men across the country. Ms. Brown received Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Choreography for her work on Choir Boy, and served as Choreographer for The Metropolitan Opera’s current production of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, the Emmy Award-winning special “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,” and the Tony Award-winning revival of Once on This Island, for which she received Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Chita Rivera Award nominations. For her choreography on BELLA: An American Tall Tale, Ms. Brown received an AUDELCO award and Lucille Lortel nomination. Ms. Brown is a graduate of the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts and received a B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
ABOUT CAMILLE A. BROWN & DANCERS
Committed to implementing and advancing the artistic vision of Camille A. Brown, Camille A. Brown & Dancers creates and presents performances, offers dance engagement activities, and investigates historical and contemporary cultural, personal, and social justice issues through the art of dance theater, in order to provide a multi-faceted platform for sharing and building understanding of and appreciation for the African American experience and fostering interaction and dialogue among diverse communities in our hometown of NYC, across the country, and globally. The company has performed at national and international venues, including The Joyce Theater, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, The Yard, American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, Celebrate Brooklyn, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, The Kitchen, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, World Music/CRASHarts, The Kumble Theater, Atlas Performing Arts Center, The Egg, The Kravis Center, White Bird, and Belfast Festival at Queen’s (Belfast, Ireland). These opportunities are possible because of the serious movers and incredible performers in the company who are able to act and dance, step into the world of history, and come soaring into the present.
ABOUT THE JOYCE THEATER
The Joyce Theater Foundation (“The Joyce,” Executive Director, Linda Shelton), a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community for over three decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation acquired and The Joyce renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Opening as The Joyce Theater in 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. Ownership was secured by The Joyce in 2015. The theater is one of the only theaters built by dancers for dance and has provided an intimate and elegant home for over 400 U.S.-based and international companies. The Joyce has also expanded its reach beyond its Chelsea home through off-site presentations at venues ranging in scope from Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, to Brooklyn’s Invisible Dog Art Center, and to outdoor programming in spaces such as Hudson River Park. To further support the creation of new work, The Joyce maintains longstanding commissioning and residency programs. Local students and teachers (K–12th grade) benefit from its school program, and family and adult audiences get closer to dance with access to artists. The Joyce’s annual season of about 48 weeks of dance now includes over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 150,000.
The Joyce Theater presents Camille A. Brown & Dancers in Mr. TOL E. RAncE from November 9-10. The performance schedule is as follows: Saturday at 8 pm; and Sunday at 2 pm & 7:30 pm. Tickets, ranging in price from $10-$55, can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org.
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Leadership support for The Joyce Theater Foundation has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust. Leadership support for The Joyce’s presentation of dance is provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Joyce’s Open Channels Project promoting diverse voices is generously supported by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Generous support for this engagement was provided through a grant from The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation to encourage the performance of New York City-based companies at The Joyce Theater. Major support for The Joyce has been provided by Howard Gilman Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The SHS Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation. Key support has been provided by First Republic Bank, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Thompson Family Foundation, and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. The Joyce Theater’s Dance Presentation Program is supported by a grant award from the National Endowment for the Arts; made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council with special thanks to Speaker Corey Johnson.
