Camille A. Brown
The work of director and choreographer Camille A. Brown taps into both ancestral and contemporary stories to capture a range of deeply personal experiences and cultural narratives of African American identity. She leads a dance company and works in theater, opera, film, and television.
Brown is the Artistic Director and Founder of Camille A. Brown & Dancers (CABD). Founded in 2014 with its flagship initiative Black Girl Spectrum, CABD’s community engagement platform, EVERY BODY MOVE (EBM), uses social dance to inspire collective action and drive social change. EBM fosters creativity through workshops, intensives, educational experiences, public events, and celebrations for people of all abilities.
In 2022, Brown made her Broadway directorial debut for the Broadway revival of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, making her the first Black woman to direct and choreograph a Broadway play since Katherine Dunham in 1955. The production received seven Tony Award nominations including Best Direction of a Play and Best Choreography for Brown. She has also been nominated for Tony awards for Choir Boy, Hell’s Kitchen, and Gypsy.
Brown became the first Black artist at The Metropolitan Opera to direct a mainstage production, co-directing alongside James Robinson on Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2021 and brought back in 2024), which she also choreographed. Also at The Metropolitan Opera, she choreographed Porgy & Bess and Terence Blanchard’s Champion.
Brown’s film and TV work includes Harlem, the Oscar-winning, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Emmy award-winning Jesus Christ Superstar Live, New Year’s Eve in Rockefeller Center, and Google Arts & Culture. A documentary about her – Camille A. Brown: Giant Steps –was produced by American Masters and Firelight Media.
Brown has received numerous awards including ISPA’s Distinguished Artist, The Dance Magazine Award, Emerson Collective Fellow, Guggenheim, Doris Duke Artist, Audelco, Princess Grace Statue Award, Jacob’s Pillow Award, and New York City Center fellow, USA Jay Franke & David Herro Fellow, TED fellow, Ford Foundation Art of Change, and Kennedy Center’s Next 50.