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written & photographed by CHRISTINA CAMPODONICO

Who dances in Los Angeles? That’s what Ampersand is trying to figure out, along with DanceMapLA, by collecting stories and snap shots from L.A.-based dance-makers. We first met dancer Bernard Brown during DanceMapLA’s video shoot and launch party at UCLA in February. Brown makes an appearance in the DanceMapLA video and he recently shared with us how taking the DanceMapLA survey changed his perspective on dancing in the City of Angels.

[Video by JONATHAN SCHELL | Edited by CHRISTINA CAMPODONICO]

After years of a “love-hate relationship” with his hometown, Lula Washington dancer Bernard Brown now embraces L.A.

A native Angeleno, Brown has danced professionally in and around the city for over 17 years. He’s currently an MFA Candidate in UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures Dance program. Though Brown feels “at home in any studio or theater around town,” he calls Lula Washington’s Dance Theatre in Crenshaw, where he trained and now teaches his “home base.”

“My dance community is broad and reaches back generations: from the babies around the drums in a West African class to the elders holding it down at the barre,” says Brown.

After taking the DanceMapLA survey, Brown was astonished to learn that he is part of the “great majority” of L.A. dancers who do not have agents. For him, L.A.’s dance scene is not as commercial as it once seemed.

[Video by JONATHAN SCHELL | Edited by RACHEL NEUBECK]

“More interesting than my own answers were to see how those answers fit into trends…or how they did not fit into patterns,” says Brown.

But Brown is used to the unexpected. He is continually inspired and surprised by dance in L.A.

“Dancing in LA is wonderful and very mysterious…Mysterious because so many of us dancers know of each [other] but do not necessarily collaborate. And wonderful in that so many things are possible: commercial dance, ethnic dance forms, ballet, modern and jazz,” says Brown.

“I have realized dancers and dance-makers here have something unique that drives and comforts me.”