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Inspired by the historic photographs of ‘Teenie’ Harris, the latest show from Ronald K Brown’s dance company, which comes to Dublin Dance Festival next week, draws on a deep connection with stories of the African-American experience, he tells BELINDA McKEON

A WOMAN AND her 12-year-old son are on a mission. The boy is a dancer; he doesn’t know it yet, but the mother has known it for years. She has watched him dance alone in their apartment, to every note of music coming from the radio and the television. She has watched him hover at doorways during dance classes at his school, wanting to take part but holding back for fear of being the only boy in the room. She has watched him staring, transfixed, at older dancers, and has watched him come home, aged eight, from an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater showcase and choreograph a dance, by himself, in the kitchen with a chair. Now, four years later, she has finally persuaded him to take the plunge and audition for a role at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.