BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play

Camille A. Brown and Dancers will perform Brown's work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2016. The performance, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Roberts Theatre, Bucksbaum Center for the Arts.

Tickets, which are free, are required for admission. They will be available starting at noon Wednesday, Jan. 25, in the box office in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts. For more information, call 641-269-3235.

Related events include:

• Artists as Activists: A lecture by Camille A. Brown.
  4:15 – 5:15 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Room 152
• Social Dance Workshop: a journey through Juba and other social dances
  11 a.m. -12:30 p.m. Saturday Jan. 28, Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Dance Studio

Please email Celeste Miller to participate in these related events.

Brown is an award-winning choreographer, dancer, director and arts activist. Telling stories that connect history with contemporary culture, she leads her dancers in soaring through history like a whirlwind.

BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play reveals the complexity of negotiating a self-defined identity as a black woman in urban American culture. In a society where black women are often only portrayed in terms of their strength, resiliency, or trauma, this work explores these narratives by representing a nuanced spectrum of black womanhood in a racially and politically charged world.

With original music compositions and live music, Brown uses the rhythmic play of African-American dance vernacular to evoke childhood memories of self-discovery. The performance is both a play and protest as performers come into their identities, from childhood innocence to girlhood awareness to maturity, all while being shaped by their environments, the bonds of sisterhood, and society at large. The work has been performed nationwide, from New York City to Portland and beyond.

Brown is the 2015 United States Artists Jay Franke and David Herro Fellow, a TED Fellow, and a Doris Duke Artist Recipient. She received her B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Her theatre credits include A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway; Jonathan Larson's tick, tick…BOOM! with Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton; and The Public Theater's Fortress of Solitude.

Grinnell College welcomes the participation of people with disabilities. Roberts Theatre is equipped with an induction hearing loop system, which enables individuals with hearing aids set to T-Coil to hear the program. Accommodation requests may be made to Conference Operations.

The College also welcomes the presence of minors at all age-appropriate public events and for informal visits, with the understanding that a parent, legal guardian, or other responsible adult assumes full responsibility for their child’s safety and behavior during such visits or events. In these cases the College expects that an adult responsible for the visiting child takes measures to ensure the child’s safety and sees that the child complies with directions of College personnel. Grinnell College is not responsible for supervision of minors on campus.