Ron Brown, Brooklyn NY, cont.

2/7

AP: Ron, would you characterize the way you work as being part of the Western concert dance tradition?

RB: Only because we’re presenting it on stage. I wish that there were more access to dance that is a part of our daily life. I think that’s what I’m aiming to do. So I see the work more as contemporary folklore—work about people, connected to life, connected to God, and that those conversations are really about our life. So, sometimes it feels really odd to even do it on the stage, because the dance community is really bizarre to me, because so often it is not about the work, it’s about going to the “theater” or something else.

AP: What does the Western concert dance tradition mean to you as an artist?

RB: I guess it represents another place where specifically Black folks have had to show that they could do what European folks could do, that they could operate in that mode. And since it’s a place you had to break into, it’s a place where you’re not welcome. When you read about those first concerts, it’s like this Negro dance doesn’t belong because it’s their [the dominant White culture’s] space. What is our space in terms of tradition or what dance feels like when you are at home responding to music? Where is that space for us? We don’t really understand, because we’re divorced from it on so many levels. It can feel like an odd relationship.

AP: As an artist, the relationship between you and the theater, even though it is your primary forum, it’s still kind of a rocky marriage?

RB: Yes, one that continues to pose questions. Actually, sometimes it makes me want to open a health food store or fruit stand. After the show last night, someone spoke to me about a kick in my choreography. I mean, it was a joke, and it was light hearted, but this was someone who I knew, and there were Black folks in the audience who—we’re not tight friends—but I feel like we work together, we know each other, but there was no response about the work. And then, the interaction we did have is about a kick? I think this is nonsense.

AP: What is the effect on the work of your existence as a Black man?

RB: It’s something that I carry with me all of the time—all of my “hyphens”—all of the things that I am—being the oldest brother, coming from Brooklyn. It’s not anything that I try and step away from. I think that part of the disease about the concert dance world, a little bit, is that as you rise up and become “refined”, you start to divorce yourself from everything. So, I’m constantly being reminded to bring all of what I am to the table as I work. And the situation here in Cincinnati, as I’m driving to the university or to the market up in the neighborhood that I have to go through, makes me feel my work more deeply, because I’m witnessing—I’m seeing—my own reflection.