CriticalDance Forum

If you oppose the war we’re in right now, do you also oppose the young Americans who are overseas fighting in it?
That’s a question renowned choreographer Ronald K. Brown contemplated when he was making his most recent dance, “Come Ye,” which is set to some provocative protest songs by Nina Simone and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. When Brown’s company Evidence makes its Cambridge debut tonight at the ZeroArrow Theatre in Harvard Square, “Come Ye” is certain to perplex some viewers and inspire others.

.... “If I could figure out a way to go to seminary and run a dance company at the same time, I would,” he says. “But I think what helps now is seeing the work we do as ministry. It’s not liturgical dance. We’re just sharing a message.”

Brown uses movement as a means of spiritual expression, and the dances that his award-winning company, Evidence, brings to Boston tonight spring from stories that reflect a journey toward liberation, acceptance, and healing.

The lush, thrumming dances of Ronald K. Brown have the power to catch you up in the heart of a prayer -- and send you soaring.

They can also, by the end of the evening, tax your patience.

That oxymoronic bent was apparent on Friday night at Cambridge’s Zero Arrow Theatre, where Brown’s company, Evidence, presented two Boston premieres and one work, “Grace” 1999), originally choreographed for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.

There hasn’t been an American modern-dance choreographer since Ruth St. Denis as committed to a spiritual journey as Ronald K. Brown. .... . Brown has developed a remarkable movement style that draws on West African and African-diasporic traditions plus an array of other sources. No one else’s dance looks like this, and though he’s choreographed for other companies, it’s his own chamber group who perform it with galvanic authenticity.

Evoking West Africa, Remembering Lady Day
by JOHN ROCKWELL for the New York Times

The novelty was what had been billed as the world premiere of a new piece called "Blueprint of a Lady: The Once and Future Life of Billie Holiday." What was seen Wednesday was called "Set One" in the program, and seems always to have been intended as the first part of a multipart work. It will expand into an evening-length work in November at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

published: July 8, 2005

Sea Life and Strange Fruit
A fertile ocean floods the city, and green Massachusetts plays host to an urban legend
by DEBORAH JOWITT for the Village Vioce

The initial juxtaposition of music and dance is clear. Freelon sings "I Didn't Know What Time it Was," and Camille Brown excellently renders Lady Day's tough, look-at-me side, with an edge of vulnerability.

Then things get a little confusing.

published: July 19, 2005

Keeping Truth Alive
Choreography that makes the spirit move
by DEBORAH JOWITT for the Village Voice
published: February 6, 2007

Brown is a religious man, and those who people his works look as if they're laboring in the fields of the Lord, every drop of sweat flying straight up to heaven. If his dances often seem to go on too long, to meander despite formal patterning, it's because he choreographs like an inspired preacher, carried away by the repeated, escalating throb of his message.

Sunday school - Ronald K. Brown at the ICA
Ronald K. Brown’s flamboyant choreography comes with a big serving of spirituality. The combination isn’t as contradictory as you might think — mainly because pious invocations and gestures only slip in and out of the dance itself, leaving the program notes to carry the story lines of an upward-striving journey.