Award-Winning Choreographer Camille A. Brown Brings Her Dance Group To The Music Hall 

On Sunday, June 18, Camille A. Brown & Dancers will perform at The Music Hall's Historic Theater as part of the Black Heritage Trail of NH's week-long celebrations for Juneteenth. 

Camille A. Brown is the artistic director of the nationally acclaimed, Bessie award-winning Camille A. Brown & Dancers, which she founded in 2006. Brown made her Metropolitan Opera debut as choreographer for Porgy & Bess in fall 2019. Brown made history as the Metropolitan Opera's first Black director of a mainstage production, Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones. In April 2022, Brown made history again directing and choreographing “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf” on Broadway— the first Black woman to both direct and choreograph a Broadway show in 65 years. Her production of “for colored girls…” received seven Tony Award Nominations, including two Tony nominations for Brown for Best Direction of a Play and Best Choreography.

“Ms. Brown's work mesmerizes and captivates the soul through her celebration of culture, history, and the human experience. We are thrilled to bring this important work to Portsmouth audiences,” says Ashleigh Tucker Pollock, The Music Hall's Chief of Staff and Dance Curator. “Watching her dancers perform is like witnessing poetry in motion, and it's an experience that can ignite the fire of creativity and inspiration in anyone.”

Having received many awards from Jacob's Pillow, Dance Magazine, and Bessie Awards in addition to the two Tony Award nominations, her work has been featured on Broadway, TV, and film including, Choir Boy, Emmy award-winning Jesus Christ Superstar Live on NBC, Much Ado About Nothing, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and the television series Harlem. She is the choreographer of the 1619 Project docuseries.

The Camille A. Brown and Dancers performance is part of the 2023 Juneteenth Celebration: Reading the Bones: Celebrating the African Diaspora, put on by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. 

“Camille A. Brown and Dancers is a group that is reclaiming Black narratives for Black and brown people and elevating African Diasporic culture to its honored place in American society,” says JerriAnne Boggis, Executive Director of Black Heritage Trail of NH. “Ms. Brown and her dancers are an excellent inclusion to our Juneteenth Celebration.” 

Other Juneteenth programming for the Black Heritage Trail of NH includes tours, panels, a reggae festival, gospel choir, and African drumming. For the full list of Juneteenth programming, visit blackheritagetrailnh.org/juneteenth-celebration-2023/ 

Tickets range from $30-70, with student and group rates available. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased by phone at 603.436.2400, online at TheMusicHall.org or at the B2W Box Office at the Historic Theater located at 28 Chestnut Street in Portsmouth. 

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