Joyce Theater to Open Fall Season with Camille A. Brown & Dancers

The Joyce Theater Foundation, Linda Shelton Executive Director, proudly kicks-off its 2015 fall season on September 22 with a world premiere by Camille A. Brown & Dancers. The work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, will be performed by an all-female cast during the company's week-long engagement at The Joyce, which runs through September 27. Tickets are $10-$40 and can be purchased through JoyceCharge online at www.joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.

Bessie Award and Doris Duke Artist Award-winning choreographer Camille A. Brown and the women of Camille A. Brown & Dancers present the world premiere of BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, a work revealing the complexity of carving out a self-defined identity as a black female in urban America. The works explores a spectrum of black womanhood in a racially and politically charged world. Live music with collaborators Tracy Wormworth and Scott Patterson encompasses the rhythmic play of African-American rooted steppin', Double Dutch, and Juba. From play to protest, the performers exhibit evolving identities, from childhood innocence to girlhood awareness to maturity-all the while shaped by their environment, the bonds of sisterhood, and society at large.

A "second-act" dialogue will follow each performance of BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, allowing audiences to engage with the artists on stage. On Saturday September 26, there will be a special post-performance discussion focused on the "Celebration of Black Women," moderated by the writer, award winning filmmaker and social justice organizer, dream hampton.

THE ARTISTS

Camille A. Brown, a 2015 TED Fellow and Doris Duke Artist Award Recipient, creates choreography that uses musical composition as storytelling, while investigating the silent spaces within measures. Her theater credits include the 2012 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire (2012), Fortress of Solitude (The Public Theater, Lucille Lortel Award Nominee for Choreography), Stagger Lee (Dallas Theater Center), Jonathan Larson's tick, tick...BOOM! (City Center's Encores!) starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Marcus Gardley's The BOX: A Black Comedy, and GALOIS at the New Ohio Theatre. Brown is a 2014 Bessie Award recipient for "Outstanding Production" (Mr. TOL E. RAncE), two-time recipient of the Princess Grace Award and NEFA's National Dance Project Production Grant, among others. Previously commissioned to create works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco!, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Urban Bush Women, Ballet Memphis and Hubbard Street II, Brown's company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, has performed nationwide and internationally.

Tracy Wormworth is a world-renowned bass guitarist in the music and television industry. Her career began as a member of the New Wave band The Waitresses, and she subsequently toured with Phyllis Hyman, Sting, Roberta Flack, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, The B-52s, jazz violinist Regina Carter, vocalist extraordinaire Rachelle Farrell, jazz great Wayne Shorter, and many other artists. She has played on recordings by Joan Osborne, The B-52s, The Waitresses, Regina Carter, Lena Horne, Paula Abdul and others. A member of the house band on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," which aired for 6 years, Wormworth is currently playing with The B-52s and has done several world tours with the band.

Scott Patterson is an American pianist, singer, composer, arranger, bandleader and artistic director of Afro House Productions, LLC. He studied piano with Cynthia White, Lois Hocker and David E. Morrow, Professor and Director of the Morehouse Glee Club. In 1997, while at Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, he won the Ibla Ragusa, Sicily Piano Competition. In 1999, he won the Conservatory's concerto competition where he performed Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor with the Cincinnati Orchestra. Patterson moved to New York in 1999 where he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music's (MSM) Master of Piano Performance program to study with Phillip Kawin. Patterson's soul rock band, Kojo Modibo Sun, emerged in 2006. The band performed throughout New York City and produced its first album, The Ballad of Kojo Modibo Sun, which Patterson wrote, arranged and produced. Currently, Patterson is composing a symphony and workshopping a musical with playwright Will Power, composer Justin Ellington and Tony Award winning musician Daryl Waters.

CAMILLE A. BROWN & DANCERS

Embodying a strong sense of storytelling, Camille A. Brown & Dancers uses theatricality and the aesthetics of Modern, Hip hop, African-American social dances, Ballet, and Tap, to tell stories that connect history with contemporary culture. The Company's body of work reflects a spectrum of comedy, politics, and everyday human experiences. The work provokes, engages, inspires, and develops a sphere of influence for cultural dialogue and reflection among audiences and local communities. The company has performed at The Joyce Theater, American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Belfast Festival at Queen's, City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, and The Yard. In 2014, Brown and company launched Black Girl Spectrum, a multi-faceted community engagement initiative that uses dance as a means to address civic, educational, and economic struggle through cultural and creative empowerment.

THE JOYCE THEATER

The Joyce Theater Foundation, a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences for three decades. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce Theater is 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. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more than 320 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 2009, The Joyce opened Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops for independent choreographers, non-profit dance companies, and the dance/theater communities. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce's Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through pre-engagement Dance Talks and post-performance Dance Chats. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.

The Joyce Theater Foundation will kick-off its 2015 fall season with a world-premiere by Camille A. Brown & Dancers, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, from September 22-27. The performance schedule is as follows: Tuesday - Wednesday at 7:30pm; Thursday - Saturday at 8pm; and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $10-$40 and can be arranged through JoyceCharge online at www.joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street. For more info, please visit www.Joyce.org.