News

It's not hard to imagine Ronald K. Brown as a preacher, compelling his congregation to consider the matters of spirituality, ancestry, identity and loss.

"I was raised Christian," says Brown, reached by phone in Mexico. "My great uncle founded a church. We went every Sunday. Sometimes during the week. It was always impressed upon me that I always needed to have a personal relationship with God."

Instead of joining the holy orders, however, Brown ministers to his audience through his choreography. His company, Evidence, addresses life's profundities through an earthy and eloquent movement language that can set the church a-rockin'.

Evidence performs Friday and Saturday, courtesy of the African American Cultural Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

"The dancers have gotten stronger and have come to understand the work on a deeper level. There are two young women in the company who were in Pittsburgh; it might have been their first tour with us. And now, oh my goodness ... we were rehearsing yesterday. At the end of rehearsal I said, 'You make me happy.' They make me feel lucky to have a dance company, to have a group of dancers who are that talented and generous with their talents."

While he casts an eye heavenward, Brown ploughs the soil of Africa as well. His vision, he says, includes room for other peoples' gods.

The Brooklyn-born Brown has traveled to the West African countries of Senegal and the Ivory Coast. In its Pittsburgh debut three years ago, Evidence performed "Walking Out of the Dark." The piece concluded with 50 pounds of earth raining down, a reference to an initiation ceremony in Burkina Faso.

"There's a dance style from Senegal which is a very sensual sexual play dance, something that's a competition between the drummers and the dancers. You use the arms like you're hitting the air, like you're hitting the drum. ... In this style, I try and dilute the sexuality in it and kind of transform it. So I'll use that gesture to the sky to now tell the dancers, 'Show me God.' Instead of it being a striking competition or a sexual thing, we're using it as a gesture toward God."

The weekend's concerts will include "Grace," which Brown created as a commission for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and "Upside Down." Evidence also will dance the Pittsburgh premiere of "Come Ye," a tribute to the life and music of soul and jazz singer Nina Simone. It premiered at the Joyce Theater in New York City last year.

"I knew I had a Nina Simone piece in me," Brown says. "But I thought it would be around some of her civil rights protest songs. But I felt I had already dealt with that era in my work. I thought one day, whatever the piece is, it will come. I was at home listening to her music. The U.S. had just gone into Afghanistan. The song 'Come Ye' came on. It really summed up how I was feeling at the time.

"In a time of war, the destination is still peace," he adds. "I was going on tour and I would get to the airport and there would be a line of young people going to war, playing with Gameboys while they were in line, and I thought, 'Are they ready? Are we ready?' You try to figure out, what can I do? What is my part?"

• Most Read
• Most E-mailed
• Latest News