Ronald K. Brown’s mission is quite simple.

“I want everyone to dance,” he said, his eyes aglow.

For two decades, Mr. Brown has been leading Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, dancing and serving as the troupe’s choreographer and primary storyteller.

Mr. Brown was born and raised in Brooklyn, in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Prospect Heights. He currently lives in Midwood and has an office in Fort Greene, right around the corner from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where “Evidence” played earlier this month as part of 651 Arts’ “Black Dance: Tradition and Transformation” series. “I started this out of my loving to make dance, and to be in this space, at home, is really mind-blowing,” he said. Dressed casually in a red tracksuit and white sneakers, Mr. Brown is soft spoken yet passionate, using his hands expressively for emphasis. He’s used to using his body for effect.

“Working with 651 Arts, the presenting organization, which is trying to support work by folks of color in Brooklyn specifically – it’s amazing to have that partnership,” he noted.

Now in his late 30s, Mr. Brown seems to have been born to dance.

“I was one of those children who danced around the house, putting on shows, making the family watch them,” he said. At the age of 6, he had his first “creative movement experiences” with the Police Athletic League, which he called a “teaser” for what was to come.

“I can look back at when I was in the second grade and it was Black History Week,” he remembered. “We had to come into school as someone we wanted to be, and I came in as Arthur Mitchell, in ballet slippers and black tights and a T-shirt.” Mitchell had danced with the New York City Ballet for 15 years before starting the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969.

Around that same time, when Mr. Brown was 8, he went on a school trip to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and afterward, inspired by what he had seen, he created a dance to Nikki Giovanni’s “To My Father’s House.” The memory flooded back to him when he was choreographing “Grace” for Ailey in 1999, having been asked to participate in artistic director Judith Jamison’s 10th anniversary celebration.

A few years after the school trip, Mr. Brown’s mother, who passed away in 1996, pushed him to audition at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

“I’m 12 years old. I thought, boys should not be doing this anyway,” he said. “Forget it. I’ll do writing. I’ll be a journalist. And she’s, ‘No, no, come on.'”

He actually was preparing to study journalism at St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vt., when a meeting with a famed instructor returned him to the dance floor.

“Before going [to college], I figured I’ll dance for the summer, and I auditioned for a scholarship at MaryAnthony Dance Studio, and that turned the whole table around,” he recalled. It was there that he began to learn about the training necessary to become a successful dancer and teacher. Mr. Brown teaches contemporary dance on Monday nights; the classes are open to the public.

The name “Evidence” “came from a solo I did in 1985, an idea that each of us, when we step into the world, we represent our families, our ancestors, all our teachers,” Mr. Brown explained. “Anyone who has invested in you, you represent what they gave you. And you have to do that with a sense of responsibility and accountability. So I wanted the company to do that same thing. I wanted the company to present work that had a sense of legacy and tradition.”

In addition to performing all over America, Mr. Brown has also traveled extensively in West Africa, incorporating the sights and sounds of the region into powerfully expressive pieces that feature strong, fluid movement and captivating narratives danced on spare sets.

“It’s such a joy to work with him,” said Georgiana Pickett, the interim executive director of 651 Arts. “It’s absolutely magical to watch him as a performer. He’s one of the rare artists who can strike a really, really sound balance between content and form. … He’s such a deeply spiritual person, and he feels his work on an emotional and personal level, and that comes across in what he’s created as a choreographer.”

The recent BAM performance included “Grace,” with music by Duke Ellington, Roy Davis, and Fela Kuti; “Come Ye,” based on the song by the late Nina Simone; the solo “For You,” set to Gordon Chambers’s version of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You”; and the New York premiere of “Dance for Peace,” with music by Terry Riley, played by the Kronos Quartet. In the past, Mr. Brown has used music by Sweet Honey in the Rock, James Brown, the Staple Singers, and Aretha Franklin.

A longtime Simone fan, Mr. Brown was deeply affected when he first heard “Come Ye,” around the time of the war in Afghanistan.

“It was so beautiful, and it just summed up exactly what I was feeling,” he said, “because it was saying, anyone who is in fear, anyone who doesn’t want to live in fear, anyone who’s dedicated to fighting for their life, come. It’s time for us to learn how to pray. That’s where I am, that the destination, even in this time of war, is still peace.”

World events have always played a role in Mr. Brown’s creative process.

“We have to find out what’s going on in the world. We can’t be disconnected and feel like we’re safe,” he said determinedly. “It’s one of the things I feel like we should have learned after 9/11 but we didn’t. Do you understand how many people are gone?”

Mr. Brown paused before discussing the evolution of “Dance for Peace.”

“So that became this exercise, that we could create a dance that was a meditation on compassion and send our love to resurrect these people who have given their lives, to pay homage to them. … We have to stay connected to it.”

The oldest of four children, Mr. Brown spends what free time he has with his family, especially his young nieces and nephews, who all live in Brooklyn. He’s also still considering having children of his own.

But mostly, he just wants to dance.

“It nourishes me,” he said, with a gleam in his eye.