Black Girl Spectrum
“Establishing safe spaces for black girls to live as creative citizens.”
Founded in 2014, Black Girl Spectrum (BGS) aims to nurture and bring awareness to Black girl brilliance. BGS explores the spectrum of identities among Black girls and women while working to create safe spaces for them to live as creative citizens. The initiative seeks to amplify the cultural and creative empowerment of Black girls and women through dance, dialogue, and popular education tools.
BGS served as participatory research that informed Ms. Brown’s evening-length work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, which premiered in September 2015 at The Joyce Theater.
Testimonials
“Black Girl Spectrum (BGS) is not only a well thought out project implemented by Camille A. Brown & Dancers it is an overall experience. Through this type of work and creativity I have seen in our middle school students the ability for them to build self-confidence, feel motivated and feel connected to the instructor and the group around them. These are powerful social impacts that are drawn out from BGS and are a current need among our youth in schools.”
- Michelle Durante, Director of Arts at Sports & Arts in Schools Foundation
“The BGS Workshop provides a great opportunity for students to explore their identity as young women through the vehicle of dance. Our students benefited from Camille’s expertise, guidance and personal story. The workshop opened up new possibilities for them in how to express through dance and in how to give a platform to their personal stories.”
— J Lyn Thomas, Dance Director at Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School
Video Gallery
EBM 's Black Girl Spectrum activities are made possible, in part, with support from the Tides Foundation, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.