A Night of Dance, Music + Majesty with Ronald K. Brown + Meshell Ndegeocello

From October 21-23, the legendary choreographer Ronald K. Brown and his dance company EVIDENCE are teaming up with legendary musician Meshell Ndegeocello to put together live, dynamic performances of his choreographies “Mercy,” “Grace” and “The Equality of Night and Day: First Glimpse” — all held within the Kennedy Center.  

Ronald K. Brown is one of the most renowned choreographers of our generation. He’s known for his seamless blend of modern Black dance forms with traditional African movement vocabularies, with his work displaying all facets of human nature — love, tragedy, resilience, loss and more. 

Brown, along with EVIDENCE, will be presenting “Mercy,” along with the two other pieces. “Mercy” is his collaboration with D.C. native Meshell Ndegeocello — a groundbreaking musician whose artistry is genuinely difficult to define. Her solo work bends and wraps genre, with attempted definitions falling somewhere around a combination of neo-soul, jazz, funk, among others. 

This will be the first time EVIDENCE graces the Eisenhower Stage to perform “Mercy.” This is also the first time District-based audiences will be able to see “The Equality of Day and Night,” a work-in-progress piece that Brown started developing in 2020. The piece builds on “Mercy,” and muses on concepts of equity and fairness given the state of our current world — where racism, exploitation and xenophobia stir. 

I spoke with Shaylin Watson, a dancer with the EVIDENCE company. She joined the team in 2019 [this is her third season with the company]. 

“I’ve always been dancing, it was in my family,” Watson says. “But I don’t think I started to take it seriously until high school — I went to Duke Ellington in D.C.”

She first heard of Ronald K. Brown’s work from a summer intensive she attended in 2014, called American Dance Festival, where she took one of his Masterclasses. 

Later, she became more involved with her work while attending school at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, when one of Brown’s former rehearsal assistants, Clarice Young, became one of Watson’s professors. 

“She took me under her wing, and really grew me up in [Ronald’s] work,” Watson says. “She really opened up the whole world to me, and then told me about the summer intensive that [EVIDENCE] holds in New York, wrote them a letter, and [I] was blessed to get a scholarship. [From there],I was introduced to Ron in 2019, auditioned for the company, and I got in, in 2019.”

Now, she’s been working with Brown and EVIDENCE for two years. She says she’s learned a ton from Brown and her fellow co-workers. She gave insight to how Brown works with the dancers, and how the choreography symbiotically evolves between the two. 

“He’ll throw some choreography at us, [we] do it, and then he changes it so quickly because of how he saw you do the work, and how he saw you tell the story,” Watson explains. 

“It’s really nice to see how Mr. Brown pulls things out of me and my fellow co-workers we didn’t know we had in us,” she continues. “I love how he keeps the humility in the work as he’s creating it.”

As a DMV native, she’s excited to bring this show to The Kennedy Center. She mentions how being able to bring this show to her community feels like a homecoming. 

“I was born and raised in the DMV area, specifically Maryland,” she explains. “I’m right in my hometown, I’ll be surrounded by people that helped me get to where I am today,” she says. “So it is a sense of homecoming. It’s almost like that feeling you get, when you go home and your mom makes you your favorite food. It feels like that.”

She knows the District well, and is excited to bring this amazing show to her backyard — one that she’s certain her community was shaped to enjoy. 

“I know my D.C. people — we just love to dance,” Watson says. “Our music is go-go, [and with go-go] there’s so many beats, there’s so many movements. [I think] the audience is going to really have a hard time trying to stay in their seats — they’re going to want to get up and dance.”

Watson, along with the rest of the EVIDENCE crew, are excited to bring Ronald K. Brown and Meshell Ndegeochello’s collaboration to the Kennedy Center this weekend — for what will prove to be a stunning collision of creative capabilities and a gorgeous display of the power of dance. 

This production plays from October 21 through October 23. The production runs for 95 minutes with two 15-minute intermissions. Purchase tickets here. 

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: 2700 F St. NW, DC; kennedycenter.org // @kennedycenter

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