Home Performing Arts Jermaine Browne: Feline to the Stars.

Jermaine Browne: Feline to the Stars.

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SCV: What’s your personal philosophy?

JERMAINE: My belief is everyone everyone can dance. It’s one of the most natural ways one can express themselves. And people do…whatever they want to. I think some people naturally have rhythms and understand music and some people are a little more challenged in that area, but when it comes down to it, its something we’re all born with, you know. It’s part of human history.

Working with one of his current students, Alexa, a young girl who has moved from Tennessee to cultivate her talents in the city with renowned teachers such as Browne himself, he tends to her subtlest motions with a playfully nurturing tone and firm seriousness that never interferes with his good natured, well intentioned disposition towards everyone.

“I don’t tolerate mess ups,” jests Browne. “I’ll throw a chair.”

Alexa collapses into laughter because she knows he carries an immensely kind heart and because she enjoys his comforting way of teasing a student into working harder. Browne brings joy to the instructional atmosphere and encourages his students to relax and trust themselves. “I think sometimes we start thinking too much and when we start thinking, we block ourselves from what we can really do,” he says in absolute promotion of balancing instinct and work ethic. “If you mess up something, you have to let it go and keep moving.”

SCV: Some would argue that at the end of the day your style is a culmination of street. Are they right?

JERMAINE: It’s a lot of different forms. It has a hip hop edge, and yes there is this edgy street sense to it. But that’s where it ends, I build from that, continue to give it fluidity, a departure of it’s own, a sense of the unpredictable.

SCV: What has been some of the most intriguing choreographs you had to construct?

JERMAINE: Definitely the recent Victoria Secret campaign. I was given the idea of Daft Punk by Victoria Secret, and I watched the video and thought, “Okay, I just have to make this more modern.” I knew I had to make the girls run, make them look elegant and of course trendy. That’s when things can start getting a little cerebral and you start doing the steps, you try to create something that’s powerful. I built everything step by step. Literally.

SCV: What goes on from here?

JERMAINE: I’m actually gonna be going over to Greece right now to choreograph for the Madonna of Greece.

He then stops to think as he moves across the room, already on his way to his next appointment.

Then one day I’ll be that rich and famous that I’ll insure my legs, (as he skips over a chord dangling from the boom box threatening to ensnare his feet gliding towards the exit).

I’ll be like J-Lo insuring her butt.

 

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