Camille A. Brown

Camille A. Brown is a prolific Black choreographer whose work taps into both ancestral and contemporary stories to capture a range of deeply personal experiences and cultural narratives of African American identity. Through the medium of dance, she is successfully balancing careers in stage, TV, and film.

As artistic director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, she strives to instill curiosity and reflection in diverse audiences through her emotionally raw and thought-provoking work. Her trilogy on race, culture, and identity has won accolades: Mr. TOL E. RAncE” (2012) was honored with a Bessie Award; BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (2015) was Bessie-nominated; and ink (2017) premiered at The Kennedy Center to critical acclaim.

Brown made her Broadway directorial debut with the 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 show since Katherine Dunham in 1955. The production received seven Tony Award nominations, including Best Direction of a Play and Best Choreography. The New York Times proclaimed the production "triumphant."

Other Broadway credits include Choir Boy (Tony and Drama Desk nominations for Best Choreography), Tony Award-winning Once on This Island (Drama Desk, Outer Critics, and Lortel nominations), and A Streetcar Named Desire. Off-Broadway credits include Toni Stone (Lortel and Audelco nominations), Much Ado About Nothing (Audelco), This Ain’t No Disco, Bella: An American Tale (Audelco), and Fortress of Solitude (Lortel nomination). For New York City Center Encores! she choreographed Cabin in The Sky and tick, tick…BOOM!

At The Metropolitan Opera, Brown choreographed Porgy & Bess (2019) and became the first Black artist to direct a mainstage production, sharing directorial duties with James Robinson on Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2021), which she also choreographed (Bessie nomination for Outstanding Choreographer). Most recently, she choreographed Terence Blanchard’s Champion, a new opera that premiered in 2023. Brown’s film and TV work includes Harlem, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the Emmy Award-winning Jesus Christ Superstar Live, New Year’s Eve in Rockefeller Center, and Google Arts & Culture.

Brown has been commissioned to create works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, PHILADANCO!, Urban Bush Women, Complexions, Ballet Memphis, and Hubbard Street II. She has been featured on the cover of Dance Magazine (2018) and Dance Teacher magazine (2016); on PBS’ “Articulate,” a nationally syndicated documentary series on the arts; and in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

Brown began her training at Bernice Johnson Culture Schools for the Arts and Carolyn Devore Dance Studios. A graduate of the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, she received a BFA in 2001 from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where she studied contemporary dance. She began her professional career as a dancer with Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, A Dance Company from 2001-2007.