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Sydnie L. Mosley Dances (SLMDances) presents Spotlight in PURPLE, a podcast that shines a light on themes and questions in our creative work PURPLE, through virtual and analog experiences.
PURPLE is a multi-project universe that illuminates the power of “deep sisterhood for social change” through storytelling and movement. This sisterhood is how we thrive: we invest in one another, we honor and celebrate each other's brilliance, and we hold ourselves accountable to experiencing radical joy.
The podcast is an offering of poetry, music, mindfulness, and an invitation to join our story circle.
We invite you to listen to this offering as a way to care for yourself. Find a comfortable seat, grab a cup of something warm and delicious, inhale, exhale, and enjoy.
To learn more about SLMDances and Spotlight in PURPLE, visit: slmdances.com/sip
[PLEASE NOTE: This transcript was generated automatically with machine learning and there were some minimal edits. There are likely to be inaccuracies. We will be fundraising for better transcription services in the future].
Kirya: Hi, my name is Kirya Yvonne Traber. I'm a Black, queer, femme, a writer, performer, and cultural worker. And this is Spotlight in PURPLEe, the podcast. Maybe you found your way here as a friend and fan of SLMD and maybe you got here by a random search for the word purple, however you got here. Welcome. I'm glad you're here.
I invite you to get cozy and settle in with me. Maybe you'd like to take a deep breath. Come on, let's do it.
Yeah, that's better.
So, where are we? This podcast is a part of a multimedia and multi-phase project, a Maximalist universe developed by the Dance Theater Collective, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances known to friends as SLMDances or SLMD for short.
This is Season 2. In the next few episodes we're going to explore the universe that is PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells, a dance theater work, which premiered in New York City on June 9th, 2023 at Lincoln Center.
Throughout this series, you'll be hearing from the creative partners of the collective collaborating artists and friends of SLMDances, just a sampling of the universe That is PURPLE.
And I will be your guide, your facilitator through this experience. Since you'll be hearing about this universe through my voice and editing skills, I wanna start by sharing a bit about myself and what brought me to this project. First things first, I am not a dancer. Nevertheless, dance keeps finding me. I call myself a "friend of dancer". And I can say that movement and embodiment practices have led me to some of my most profound and personal discoveries.
Sydnie Mosley herself, well, she's a dancer friend of mine, and so much more. Our paths seem to cross again and again at pivotal moments in both of our lives, though I'm sure many would say that about Sydnie, she's that type. A connector. What's important to name for this podcast is that Sydnie and I share a very specific lineage.
We are Black women and femme creatives, conscious of our political and creative foremothers, and I argue this makes our creative work unique in our respective fields.
Allow me to let Nikki Giovanni help me expound. The African slave bereft of his gods, his language, his drums searched his heart for a new voice. Under the sun and the lash, the African sought meaning in life on earth and the possibility of life hereafter. They shuffled their feet, clapped their hands, gathered a collective audible breath to release the rhythms of the heart. We affirmed in those dark days of chattel through the white knights of emancipation that all we had was a human voice to guide us and a human voice to answer the call.
What I take from this quote from her essay, Sacred Cows and Other Edibles, is an undeniable truth that as Black people, we are a part of a lineage by blood and struggle of a people whose expressions have been deliberately and systematically silenced. And in breaking our silences, we become aware that our every deliberate utterance holds weight.
Giovanni speaks only of the lineage of slavery here, and that ought to be weight enough to bear. But, thanks to bell hooks, we should also name the lineage of the entire imperialist white supremacist heteropatriarchy. And so I stayed again as Black women and femmes, by speaking, by making art. We defy all that does not want us to exist.
We determine ourselves as real human, woman, femme, and ever expansive. I'm not the first to make these claims. Claudia Tate, editor of the Seminole 1983 Collection Black Women Writers at Work speaks to the unique values she observed in her interviews.
By and large Black women writers do not write for money or recognition. They write for themselves as a means of maintaining emotional and intellectual clarity of sustaining development and instruction. Each writes because she is driven to do so regardless of whether there is a publisher, audience or neither.
Quick aside to note that this collection was just re-released in 2023, and you must get yourself a copy.
While self-determination is rationale enough to make our work, by and large, we do not do this for ourselves alone. As Ntozake Shange says of her own purpose for writing. When I die, I will not be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can attend to their emotional health other than themselves.
We Black femmes, speak, write, paint, sculpt, and dance so that we can heal ourselves and by example each other. Our art is at once an act of resistance against a historical tide intended to erase us and an act of service to our beloved communities. And so I present this introduction to SLMDances as a story of lineage, self-determination, and of radical care.
More directly put in a cultural landscape that is dominated by white supremacist heteropatriarchy and an artistic landscape shaped almost entirely by capitalism. This collective should not exist, but it does. It is thriving, and that's remarkable and worth documenting.
A bit about terms and structure. I use the word femme, not as interchangeable with the word woman, but instead to invite an expansive understanding of gender. Femme as collaborating artist Ianne Fields Stewart, so aptly defined. It is an expression that gives honor to the divine feminine.
Where I can, I will have members of the collective introduce themselves. Since this entire project is an exercise in self-determination. I want you to hear the artist described in their own words, it is who they were on the day we spoke. They may and likely have transformed since those conversations. But hearing these self descriptions may provide some insight into where they were coming from and what they felt was necessary to name on that day.
In this Episode Building the Altar: The Creation of PURPLE by SLMDances we’ll learn about the history of how they became a collective. The values that guide the work and how those values show up inside their newest work.
In later episodes, you will hear about the location of PURPLE – the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the neighborhood formerly known as San Juan Hill, and the community engagement process with the Lincoln Square Neighborhood center.
You’ll get to listen in on a conversation with some of the most brilliant Black femmes artists I know, Ebony Noelle Golden, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Sydnie L Mosely to talk about the Black Womanist literary cannon that inspired the work
And (with any luck) there will be an audio experience of PURPLE.
I hope you enjoy the journey….
So, What is Sydnie L. Mosley Dances? Let's start with its founder.
Sydnie: How would I introduce myself? Um, my name is Sydnie Liana Mosley. I am a Black woman who is desperately trying to live a thriving life, and in that, attempt am trying to take the best care of myself possible inside of doing things in my day-to-day life, such as making art with people who I love and care about. And being in good relationship with my family and friends inside of doing that, I'm just trying to figure out what are all of the support systems to make that possible. That's how I would introduce myself today.
Sydnie L. Mosley Dances is a dance theater collective based in New York City, with roots in Harlem and the Black and brown communities of the Upper West side ofNnew York City and we create work that is pertaining to, is organizing with and for, racial and gender justice in a myriad of ways.
Britt: I would say, SLMDances is an incubator for, creative processes. That allow you to not only be on stage, but also enter into the world as a better human being.
Joan:Iit's just a really magical and special space and something like I've never experienced before and I think that's why I probably won't leave until Sydnie says she's had enough of me [laughter]. Or until I can't do the work, um, in this, in the capacity that I would need to be. But um, it also feels like something that will always be a part of my life regardless.
Britt: I'm Brittany Grier, Brit Anne for short. And I am a Creative Partner, Rehearsal Director and the Community Engagement Liaison with Sydnie L. Mosley Dances . Beyond the company. I'm a sister, I'm a granddaughter, I'm a daughter. I'm a caretaker. I'm learning how to be a disruptor. I am a bridger of connections and I'm also a dope ass Black woman. Can't forget that.
Joan: My name is Joan Bradford. I use she her pronouns. I am a dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, arts administrator. Facilitator, in SLMDance's Land, I am a Creative Partner, Rehearsal Director, and Production and Administrative Manager. Mouthful. It's a lot of titles.
Kirya: For the last six years, all of the collective efforts has been put towards the development of PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells, and this work has become a distillation of their mission and values as described on the website: PURPLE is a multi-project universe that illuminates the power of deep sisterhood for social change through storytelling and movement. This sisterhood is how we thrive. We invest in one another. We honor and celebrate each other's brilliance, and we hold ourselves accountable to experiencing radical joy. But what does that look like as a work of performance?
Rosamond: To me, it is a choreopoem. So it's a multidisciplinary work that engages with Black women's lineage and moves through community, predominantly woman of color community, to present an expression that can be interpreted by anyone.
I am Rosamand S. King, and I am a creative and critical writer, performer and artist. I am a guest artist for SLMDances, and very excited to be participating in PURPLE.
Connie: I think it's a piece about love and, and, and loving yourself, and loving others and accepting people is a, is is also a piece about acceptance. Accepting yourself and accepting others, and respecting yourself and respecting others because you can't do any of those things.
You can't love yours, love anyone else. You can't respect anyone else. You can't accept anyone else until you have accepted, loved, and, and, and honored yourself.
My name is Connie Winston, and depending on my mood and the time of day, I refer to myself as a former actor, but I think I'll always be an actor.I'm a theater artist. I have, been a producer, a director, a playwright, a dramaturg, which I am presently. On, PURPLE, I'm a theater artist and I've been working in the theater close to 40 years. Can't believe it.
Kirya: The name PURPLE itself has a richly referential origin story. Sydnie recalled a season in 2014 when she and a close friend were adventuring around New York City. They attended a public dialogue between Scholar bell hooks and journalist Melissa Harris Perry, a Wangechi Mutu exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, and an event where the choreographer, Camille A. Brown spoke.
Sydnie: As we were, you know, skipping around New York City, going to all of these events, there was a very particular energy that was happening in those spaces because it was by and for Black women. And we started to call that energy purple. With direct reference to Alice Walker and The Color Purple. And so what I started to realize, coming out of that naming was that, that energy was also being cultivated inside of SLMdances. And so this as a artistic project was a way for me to explore slash capture what that energy is and to share that out with a broader audience.
Kirya: It wasn't until 2018, nearly four years later, that this energy turned into an impulse around movement that was officially brought back to the collective.
Jessica: I remember one day we were there in the studio and Sydnie came in. And she said, I worked on something I worked on something and it was movement I made in my bed. And it's really like luxurious and indulgent and my understanding of it was that it was like honoring like your queendom and your power and like lavishness of lounging about and resting.
Sydnie would come in with questions and they became prompts, movement prompts. And so one of those was how do you give yourself permission? And so she asked me to make a phrase and we were just generating a lot of material and it felt very open-ended. We had no idea what it was going to become. And I really appreciated the amount of time that we took in that phase of the work. Any idea was valid and it was like gooey and delicious.
My name is Jessica Lee. In my broader life, I consider myself a dance and teaching artist, a collaborator, arts administrator and organizer. And that looks like. Dancing, teaching little kids and middle schoolers. It looks like supporting behind the scenes and in event planning and beyond. I am a Creative Partner, Rehearsal Director and Fundraising Manager for SLMDances. I've been a part of the collective since June of 2017, and I've been working with Sydnie and the collective on PURPLE since 2018, since Sydnie came into the studio and said, I have an idea, try on this movement.
Kirya: Since those first movement responses, the collective has engaged in deep study. Close readings and discussions of visual and performing arts literature and non-fiction books, many directly from the Black womanist canon among them. Of course, The Color Purple, which Sydnie first encountered in high school
Sydnie: My senior year in high school was a pivotal year because it was my senior year in high school. It was an English elective African American women writers. And so in that class I read all of these texts, including The Color Purple.
I read Gloria Nailer for the first time. I read Octavia Butler for the first time. I think that was also the first time that I came into contact with Shange and For Colored Girls, it really shaped my imagination of what Black women can, the worlds that we can imagine for ourselves, and the fact that I was already living in that world.
And so like. What else can we do? Where else can we play and, and what can I pull from that as a foundation to be a salve for the questions and the problems that need solving in this particular moment of my own life?
I wanna name Klik Sims was my teacher. Also a wonderful Black woman, who really just like cracked something open for me and my classmates, at that time.
Kirya: Other than Alice Walker, the artist whose influence is most visible in the work is Ntozake Shange. One of the founding collaborating artists in PURPLE is Ms. Dyane Harvey, who was a friend and collaborator of Shange herself. I asked her how she sees the influence of her friend's work and life showing up through PURPLE.
Mama Dy: full, full name? All of all of the names that I go by. Dyane, student of life, seeker of the light. Always looking for balance and harmony. Dance teacher, professor. Guest artist, collaborator, choreographer, movement director. Founder of Maat Pilates. Um, healer mother, grandmother. Sister, wife, lover, companion. That's enough. Yeah.
Based on conversations I've had with Ntozake, her connection to number one, the spirit world Her understanding that one must revere the ancestors. Her understanding of the diaspora and how important it is to honor people of the diaspora and connect them to one another. Her desire to expose the truth. As she understands it and to speak out against racism, sexism, the isms, because of her love for humanity, Sydnie has been able To not only reference it through the literature, but she has chosen members of the quote unquote collective that represent these different aspects of, Ntozake's consciousness.
Kirya: In a later episode, we're gonna dive even deeper into the literary influences within PURPLE. But now I do wanna talk a little bit about dance. And you didn't think I was gonna go this whole piece without at least a little dance talk, did you? There have been influences from friends of the company, Andre Zachery, and Renegade Performance Group, as well as Soca and Contemporary Caribbean dance led by artist Candace Zachery Thompson and Kendra J.j Ross.
But as collaborating artist, Jazelynn tells it, there's one technique that is most prominent.
Jazelynn: My name is Jazelynn Shanae Goudy, you can either call me Jazz or Jazelynn. she, her hers are my pronouns. Depending on who I'm talking to. You know, I'm a dancer, educator, veteran artist, and homie. Coming from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Uh, job title, I am an Assistant Professor of Dance at an institution. I'm an interdisciplinary performing artist, scholar who likes to do Black stuff, but more centered on the Midwest, where I'm from and my experiences throughout the diaspora in the different countries I've visited. I like to talk a lot. I like to eat a lot. And yeah. that's me. Hey y'all
Sydnie likes Bartenieff floor technique. The legs sweepy things. She also digs into Limon. There is also a West African practice within it, and then she invites guest artists to come in. Most, some are coming from theater backgrounds.
but Sydnie likes to legs sweep. On the floor. And I have a love-hate relationship with Bartenieff floor technique.
But I can do it, you know, just like, it just feels good on the body.
Kirya: The music of PURPLE was similarly developed by following the impulse towards what felt good.
Counterfeit: My name is Sharon Udoh. I am a pianist, composer. that is what I'll call myself today. Um, because of my body issues, I will probably not be playing the piano in the show, but Composer.
I have a chosen mother. Her name is Nina Simone, and she, and I have, interesting synchronicities in our stories. One of hers is that she gave herself the name Nina Simonebecause she did not want her mother to find out that she was playing the devil's music. And Counterfeit Madison is a moniker for that very same purpose.
I love making music for dance because I just really liked the opportunity to like, tell a story, but like using like anatomy. Like Joan has this solo and I like write that solo, like based on her left leg. And it's like, it's really nice to watch and create based on movement. I just feel like a lot of times it goes the other way around. Like a dancer will dance to me and I like the opportunity to make to a dancer. But I also am an emotional person and so I'm really, I really love the opportunity to, accentuate whatever's happening, juxtapose with what's happening.
It's big, it's classical. It's full. It's sparse. It's a, yeah, it's, it's melancholy. It's pensive. It's contemplative. Yeah. It's basically like me following the preacher. you know, in church you, if a preacher is having a moment, if, if it's like an alter call or if there's like, you know, some really impassioned plea to come, like give your life to, it's, it's the same thing. It's like, how can I paint this moment.
Brianne: My name is Brianne Ford. My pronouns are she her. I am a Black female, jazz pianist, educator, creator, creative writer, advocate for young people and children, girls, and the voiceless.
And prior to performing this work, I had a conversation with Sharon Udoh, the composer of the work, and she gave me the permission to make it mine. I had to discover the intention of the piece of what Sydnie's vision of the piece was.
And it took me a minute for that to settle in that this was not just a performance, these are not just tech rehearsals that this is, was and is an actual ritual.
I'd actually practiced the movements so that the cues were internal for me and bringing something of my own of my family to the piece really made the music and the process one that I felt that I had ownership of and that I was a full partner of.
Kirya: There's so much more to this work beyond music and dance. As collaborating artist Rosamand describes:
Rosamond: It's a very tactile piece. There's installation, there is a. There's stuff for your, your visual feast, there's stuff for your audio fees, there's stuff for your, embodied piece. There are opportunities for participation. But it's not a narrative in the sense of this happened and then this happened, and then that happened, the end. That's why I'm calling it an expression rather than kind of a story or a narrative.
Kirya: It's no wonder that they call this project a universe. There are oral histories of the lives of local elders quilts, hand stitched by collaborating artist Kim Hall, an EP produced by collaborating artist Ebonie Smith. Portrait Photography by Jules Slüttsky. A series of short films made by Rah Productions. Dance curriculum that the collective members have facilitated across the country. And a student film festival, multiple gallery installations, and this very podcast series.
So how was this universe birthed? Let's zoom out for a second and learn a little more about the collective and its members.
Despite diverse backgrounds in race, gender, culture, and dance lineage, every member or creative partner and collaborating artists of SLMD seems to have found their way to the collective for similar reasons. Each was seeking a new approach to art making one that was more aligned with their values.
Some did go through a formal audition process, but for others joining the collective was more organic. Collaborating artist Veleda tells the story of how an impromptu phone conversation on the sidewalk led to her joining the company.
Veleda: So my name is Veleda Roehl in addition to coming in as a guest artist, ome of the titles that I also enjoy in, in my community are mother, I'm a mama, also a daughter, a sister, an auntie, and I am a wife, a partner. Currently I am a student, in a Bachelor's of Science and Nursing program on my way to becoming a certified nurse midwife. I am a birth worker. I am a dancer, I am an educator, and also a. Movement and yoga instructor. I have taught dance in many different situations and communities and also, uh, am a certified yoga teacher for both general population and prenatal populations.
So I have a really wonderful friendship with Nia Austin Edwards. Who for a long time, was one of the Creative Partners at SLMD and also one of the Directors. We were on our way into the Park Slope Food Co-op, um, for some snacks. I think we were gonna go hang out in Prospect Park, and so I rem I remember it very vividly. And so we were on the sidewalk. Nia was having the chat with Sydnie, and I was like, Hey, Sydnie, you know, I'm, I'm really interested. I have this going on. I have that going on. Um, and also, you know, as a mother, I feel like it's so important for me to be on stage dancing. Mother's bodies are. Are moving bodies and, and, and we need to be seen on stage. And, and I, I'm in love with dance still with all the things that in my life I, I still wanna move. And Sydnie was like, okay, well what you got?
And I was like, Nia, hold this. And Nia held the, the phone and I just, you know, I, I, I let my feelings be known. It was very passionate. It involved some floor work on the sidewalk, you know, I didn't wanna hold back. There was a leg in there. Um, a twirl, you know, it, it was, it was a, it was a moment for me to also share some of my personality because I think as someone who was just showing up in audiences or in conversations, maybe you don't know, like how deeply and profoundly silly I am.
Kirya: This notion of inviting silliness over seriousness is more than an expression of Veleda's personality. It's an assertion of her values and an overt challenge to the culture within the professional dance industry.
Veleda: I'll speak specifically to like New York Black dance really tries to encourage a scarcity mindset. That's my, that's my personal opinion. That people are convinced that there's very few jobs for you as a, as a Black femme in dance. And your career's probably gonna be short-lived. So get what you can while you can get it. And I have found that to be not true. So I don't take that lie to heart. I don't take that seriously.
Thank God, because of my mentors, because of people like Adia Whitaker and Ase Dance Theatre Collective. Because of choreographers like Millicent Johnnie who, who brought me in as Black femmes in the space. Nia love. Um, who've helped me see that there is an abundance of opportunity and there's an abundance of ways that Black femmes show up in dance in New York. There's not just one way to be, um, Marjani Forte, another person who's helped me in that, um, opening my mind in that way so I, I can come with my sense of humor, I can come with my personality, I can come with my motherhood.
I can come with who I am and not worry that it won't be good enough or that I'll be replaced because I'm, I'm irreplaceable in my community.
Kirya: For her part. Sydnie had a vision early in life of one day leading in dance.
Sydnie: When I was a teenager, I got very clear, not only did I wanna have a life and career in dance, but that I specifically wanted to lead a dance company, um, as an entity to share my own creative work. And I knew that at 17 years old.
Kirya: She founded Sydnie L. Mosley dances in 2014. But after encountering the same industry toxicity that Veleda described, she and her company members were burned out. She knew she had to shift.
The New York Times recently reported on a trend towards collective leadership among dance companies. SLMDances was even featured in the article "Dance's Communal Ethos is Moving Into the Office and Boardroom," but this is not a new post pandemic trend for Sydnie. She began experimenting with the idea of collective leadership as early as 2018.
Jessica: Sydnie was asking the dancers to step into a larger responsibility and role, and those who decided to stay. We're ready for that and have a lot of skills and since then we've been building our skills as individuals, as collaborators. And I would say that we've also been building our the structure of being a collective and how we function as a collective and that.
We were not necessarily originally a true collective when we first started the that idea. But in naming that we've been able to grow into it.
Kirya: The exact structure for the exact structure for their collective leadership evolved over the next few years, and in large part, through conversations with Nia Austin Edwards, Co-founder of PURPOSE Productions and longtime friend of Sydnie's and a former collaborator with SLMDances. Through their conversations, Sydnie and Nia came up with the concept of a dream catcher.
Sydnie: We have shifted from the idea of, you know, there's only one leader who is guiding the ship to really what we're looking at as a dream catcher. The indigenous artwork and practice of a dream catcher as a way to visualize and imagine what our organizational structure is and how we work together and how vision and dreaming is embedded in our way of working.
Kirya: To understand this dream catcher analogy, let me remind you of what one looks like. The outside structure is a hoop around, which are dozens of woven threads that meet at a center point to the observing eye.
It looks a bit like a spider web that is expanding outward from a center point. This is how leadership functions at SLMD. At the center is the board of directors, and then outward from there, I'll let Creative Partner Brit explain further.
Britt: There is Sydnie, Artistic Director. And then there are the Visioning Partners. And then the Visioning Partners extend out to the Rehearsal Directors. And then the Rehearsal Directors extend out to the Creative Partners.
Um Mm. I'm gonna get a little poetic, so forgive me. Just thinking about it, like the breath, like the inhalation, influencing the breath out, I think of the dream catcher that way is like what is inside that is, being held to then expand out to the different roles that people have.
This is how I've looked at it through like a embodied weaving.
Kirya: For many Creative Partners and collaborating artists, there was really one reason that attracted them to the collective most, and that's who was at the center of their mission. Black women.
Jazelynn: Like I Wow. Black woman working in theater and dance, focusing on the issues that Black women do, focusing on a company that, that she verbally says like, I'm, this is a Black woman founded dance company and rooted like the main number in this company will be Black women. And I was like, damn, you said that and you keep getting money. Wow. Wow. like, It's not a dictatorship of like, I tell you what to do, here it is. It's like, no, what does the collective need to succeed? What do we as a group need to do to get the work done, but also care for you in a process? You know? And many times within many dance companies, they say a collective model, but does it feel that way?
like it drew me to like, oh, I too belong in this space. But also she's curating the space to make sure and guaranteed that I too belong.
Ianne: I mean it's a PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells,e, inspired by the legacy of Ntozake Shange featuring the cast of predominantly Black women. choreographed by a Black woman. I, there's not much you gotta like sell me on, you know, like, when it comes to Black women, I'm always gonna bet on us. And so I don't really, you didn't have to sell me on it. It was just all the other stuff that came with it that was like, that sounds great. I'd love to be a part of that. Yeah. And you'll pay me. Fantastic.
My name is Ianne Fields Stewart. I use they/them, she/her pronouns. Storyteller, lesbian, non-binary, trans woman, queer Black, um, fighter healer, uh, delicious, deviant. And, uh, too complex for just one word. In SLMD, I am a guest artist
Lorena: I already had an understanding that I wanted to, step away from European centered, techniques, and I wanted to explore. Mm, just other sites of dance. And I already had an understanding that I wanted to work with, um, people of color and Black people at the time. For me it was people of color. It was, oh, I was just group them all together. Um, and so, yeah, I read the description and I was like, this seems aligned with my values somewhat. My values weren't quite as defined as they are now. Or I didn't have the words for them yet.
My name is Lorena Jamarillo. I am a Creative Partner and I am the Marketing Manager with SLMDances.
Yeah. I'm a dancer. I am a dance artist, a teaching artist, and it's a general person living life.
Kirya: Lorena went on to share that being a part of SLMD has been instrumental in further developing her politics and values around racial justice.
Though SLMD explicitly centers Black femmes, it is an interracial collective. Allow me to be frank and direct. In my experience as an artist and organizer, I've found the work of racial justice is often watered down by interracial organizing. Too many organizations profess an anti-racist politic, but end up recreating white supremacist practices within their operations and power structure. SLMD stands out as a counter to the norm.
Rosamond: This is also. I would say the first time that I've been in deep collaboration with white people, that's been interesting cuz I didn't necessarily expect that when I came into the company.
So even when you have white people who are enamored of their own politics or you know, believe themselves to be and are in fact liberal slash progressive, when racism comes up, there's often a kind of. An intake of breath and a, a tiny bit of withdrawal. That's, that's partly about fear, right? That's partly about fear of being, of them being attacked or, or being called racist. Um, perhaps saying the wrong thing. I mean, I'm, I'm ventral izing obviously, because I'm not exactly in their position, but I do notice the external. Trappings of it, which is the intake of breath and the, and the withdrawal.
Kirya: Rosamand described a recent conversation in PURPLE rehearsal room where Black and brown company members were sharing their experiences of racism from the building security on the Lincoln Center campus. There she experienced a distinct difference in this interracial space.
Rosamond: You know, we were talking recently at rehearsal about how we are treated when entering the rehearsal space, the physical building. And then there was extrapolation from that into some of the larger ways that the company has been treated by, The powers that be. And there was no intake of breath and there was no withdrawal.
Kirya: I went ahead and asked the two white Creative Partners, Joan and Jessica, how they see themselves confronting anti-Blackness in this work. You'll hear from Joan first and then Jessica.
Joan: I think it looks like just being, having a, an awareness of where we're placing ourself. you know, there's things that come up. Something around a prop that I would be the first one to touch it in the piece. And I was like, oh, I don't think I should be the first person to touch it in the piece. like I shouldn't be in the front and I could be in the front and center, but I shouldn't be taking up the front and center for a whole piece, um, or positioning myself there without someone telling me to, which like is literal in space centering. And also I, you know, I love the community agreement of move up, move up, like move up your listening or move up your speaking. And I think it's easy for me to move up my speaking just like as, as I am as a human. So it's a lot of like moving, moving up my listening
Jessica: I guess I could say that the Black women choreographers and the Black femmes that I have worked with are using their creative practice and their choreographic practice and their, the tools that they have to bring people together to remind people of their humanity and in fighting for their liberation. There is a ripple effect and so yeah, being in their presence and included in their work, I have learned practices and my Framing and understanding of how systems work is constantly shifting and has grown. And I am asked to question what is my liberation? What are, what is our liberation? What is our collective liberation? And that I can't be free until we're all free. A little Fanny Lou Hammer. And I have learned to connect more with my humanity through these creative processes.
Kirya: This commitment to collective liberation is alive and thriving in SLMDances and is making an impact on all of its collaborators.
Rebecca: I will say our collective, like we come from so many disparate points throughout, like our lineages, our histories, and even how we like, have approached and come to like dance as a form. It's really opened up. My perspective, and my capacity for empathy, which I always thought was wide, but it's definitely just like widened that gap. And it's definitely also informed how I approach my practice as a mover and a choreographer and, a collaborator first and foremost. It's definitely informing how to set up effective boundaries, how to Communicate effectively and clearly how to be my best self.
I'm Rebecca Gual. I'm 30 years old. I am a Black femme presenting person. Um, born and raised in Queens, New York. I am a daughter, a sister, a cousin, um, a collaborator. , I'm fiercely curious about why the world works the way it does. I. I'm an artist and I love to work in movement-based practices, and I love asking questions.
I'm constantly want to learn more
Kirya: Perhaps the most radical practice within the collective is how seriously they take the work of centering care. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. Audre Lorde wrote those words in 1988, shortly after her second cancer diagnosis. Here, Audre Lorde makes the case that care for women. And women of color especially care for are bodily mental and spiritual integrity is an outright defiance against a culture that does not want us to survive. It was true in 1988, and it's true today.
Joan: The way we're working is really radical. Especially in the landscape of dance and the dance world. the same rigor is expected from us, from Sydnie, I would say in our dancing. It's not, it's not less of that. But there is a certain level of care that I have not experienced in the dance world outside of working with Sydnie.
Britt: My gosh. Oh, what is care?
I'm gonna pause before I speak. I'm gonna think about it. I'm gonna give myself that permission a little bit. Um, okay. I'm defining care as the space to shape, or be shaped by allowance. Allowance to be allowance to, intentionally move with compassion and, leave someone including yourself better than how you met them.
Candance: She gives us moment of laughter. We have laughter and that helped. Tough situations and difficult conversations. She gives us space to honor our bodies and honor our feelings. Yeah, and she's very, everybody in a collective is very approachable, so we can have these hard conversations and know that everything will be all right. We can breathe together.
my name is Candance. She, her pronouns, I have a plethora of nicknames. I have like over 10. But yeah, Candance. It is, my name is very important to me. On my birth certificate it says Candace, c a n d a c e. But my mom actually named me Candance, and some nurse decided not to put the N in it. So I've been living my life as Candace and Candance when I sign legal documents. It is Candace. But everywhere else is Candance.
Kirya: Collaborating artist Jazelynn discovered the collective's commitment to a politic of care after she had an unfortunate accident.
Jazelynn: After I auditioned for the company, I tore my ACL teaching and so I really thought I was gonna get kicked out. You know like, I was crying, like, I don't know if I'm being able to dance. And she was like, okay, we, you can move your arms, can't you? What can you do?
So if you watch PURPLE for majority of the stuff I'm in a chair was because during the form formal formations of it, I was actually in a chair.
And so, um, having it to where people actually like care about my wellbeing was important and not just for the greater good of the production and the work, but like for me, You know, in general was really nice and thoughtful as well as really encouraging. And it also influenced how I show up as a professor as well as like a, a collaborator and curator within my own spaces.
Kirya: It is through this unrelenting commitment to care that Sydnie is able to ask her fellow artists to commit so wholly to the work. Often this means bringing aspects of their personal lives and personal history into the process
Throughout PURPLE there is practice of calling in those who have passed on. is a form of ancestor veneration, which is familiar to many of us in the Black diaspora.
According to scholar Dr. Marcellite Failla, in most African continental religions and those in the diaspora, ancestors are the direct line of connection between this realm and the spirit world. Practitioners also honor blood related and unrelated ancestors.
Even for those of us who aren't actively practicing Vodun or Ifa, it's common to have altar like spaces in our homes where photos and keepsakes of our ancestors are placed and honored. In the development of PURPLE, these traditions were taken a step further into ancestor play, a theatrical improvisation practice, which ask collective members to literally embody the characteristics of their ancestors and interact with one another.
Candance: I was actually very terrified to, to have a conversation about my ancestors. During the audition process we were led through a, a movement practice and we had to recall an, an ancestor or recall someone that holds you accountable and. A coworker of mine at the school had just passed from COVID, and she kind of like washed over me and I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not ready for any of this.
I'm, I'm not. I was not, I'm, in some ways I'm still not ready,
I was scared to have these conversations with my ancestors because I felt like me here on earth. I didn't do enough and I felt like they would be mad at me or they would have more to say that more than I can handle. I'm more comfortable with it now, but in the early stages it was just like, woo, no thanks.
I'm just gonna sit in my corner and I'm gonna pray on this cuz I'm being flooded with different ancestors in my body and different memories that I try not to think of because it makes me sad. But with Sydnie, I'm finding joy in that process.
Remembering that the memories that she's asking to spark up. Aren't always bad memories and they don't have to be sad
I can smile and say, I miss you and I'm dancing for you right now. I'm living for you right now.
Ah, I was not expecting to cry today.
No. But yeah, she's definitely helping me see joy in it,
Kirya: This ancestor work asks a lot of the collective members. It's not a technique any of them would've learned in their ballet training, but it's a way of working that challenges western norms. And where knowledge is derived from
Lorena: I truly believe that the body is its own source of knowledge. So it's not just like your brain and everything that you learn, because we sometimes, you know, at least in Western education, we're very centered and like the knowledge that we can acquire through our brain, through our, through logic thinking. And we ignore a lot of like the knowledge that we store in our bodies
Yeah, I just think that we ignore our bodies so much sometimes because we are like, oh, that's secondary thing. And it's like, no, these are our homes.
Kirya: For many, this more sacred relationship with the body is why they committed to a life and dance in the first place
Amy: My dad died, uh, by suicide in August, 2007, and I didn't want anything anymore. Like I couldn't feel anything, but, but when I danced, I felt like I was on the planet. Like I felt like I was here. And so that was kind of it for me. It was just like, oh, well I'm, I'm here. Let's start there. So, so I decided to try to be a dancer.
So like, dance just saved my life over and over and over again. Like this is one example of it, but in so many times in my life, dance just was there.
So my name is Amy Shoshana Bloomberg and I am a really old friend of Sydnie's.
I feel like I have a really, a long, meaningful history with Sydnie and I was one of her first dancers out of when I graduated, when she was starting her company.
I'm a theater director now. I was a dancer before. I have a theater company called The After Image, and it is a dance theater company, an experimental dance theater company, and we work in a devising way .I do those things and I, and I'm a teaching artist for the Moth, and I don't know, I don't know what else I do, stuff like that
Kirya: As the name of the work states. PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells, tthhis is as much ritual work as it is a performance like grief work and ancestor play. Ritual in and of itself is another loaded concept that comes with its own cultural baggage, especially in this diverse collective. Every artist in the project comes to this concept with a distinct and personal history, but each has found new meaning through the development process.
Like our womanist Foremothers, Syndie and her collective are healing themselves through this work, and this has been made possible by the commitment to caring for themselves and each other, the radical permission to pursue that which they need.
Ianne: I think that what I'm encountering in my life as I've been working on this piece and sort of a, and asking those same questions of myself is that I feel like I'm beginning to encounter ritual as what you, not necessarily what you do every single day, consistently the same way, but rather returning to rituals as the things you do when you need this, when you need that.
And similarly, you know, um, I was. I had asked Sydnie in one of our rehearsals each time that we performed this ritual from beginning to end is that we started as if it was the first time each time, or is it number 598 time that we've done this ritual? And she said the second one. And she likes that question.
And I like that question. Because I ask good questions, but also because, um, I think that what it gave for me was the awareness that each time I do this ritual, I'm gonna get something new out of it because I need something different from it that particular day. So when I perform it, it will never be consistent and it should never be consistent because even though. Well, and also before Sydnie hears this and kills me, I don't mean that I will not like perform the choreography as a, as, as according to what we have rehears. I mean that, that there's going to be a time where the same gesture that I've done 15 times before suddenly locks into place in a way in my body, in a way that I didn't realize it could.
And I think that's a lot of what ritual can teach us, is that it's if we are returning to. The same things as we need them, those things will be revealed to us as, um, in the way that they need to be.
Counterfeit: It was like straight up church for me, so much that, oh my God, you can put this in or you can not, but Sydnie knows. So like, there's this one part of the piece where, it like starts off in this horseshoe shape with us all breathing and I was supposed to leave the breathing and like people were like, oh my God, Sharon, calm down with the breathing.
And now it's triggered because it like made me feel. Like I was in a prayer service, like it, like it took me right back to church to like my super homophobic pen Pentecostal church, and I was like, Sydnie, I don't know if I can do this. So, so I was taken out of that part.
Sydnie's work, you know, with some boundaries, I have to feel myself out, but it is religious to me. And I think that's also why I want to do it, because, I will choose any, I will take any opportunity to engage with something bigger than myself artistically.
Lorena: There is this very strong feeling in Mexico of like being robbed of our identity, being robbed of, of the greatness that was our indigenous, peoples. And, and so seeing that, like, I think I already felt that tension, if that makes sense. Of like, , the way that religion was imposed on my land and my people.
I think there's definitely a spiritual part of it. Like, , I feel like a need to connect with, This like curiosity to access a knowledge of my ancestors, like my indigenous ancestors and like the things that may have been lost.
And, and I think, I think that's a spiritual part of just like finding this connection that I now see so sacred of the human and the earth. Not the human and the God.
Sydnie: Whether we're speaking directly about God or we're finding it in our relationships, and particularly our relationships between women, all of it is divinely designed, all of it.
Kirya: Like our womanist Foremothers, Sydnie and her collective are healing themselves through this work, and this has been made possible by the commitment to caring for themselves and each other, the radical permission to pursue that which they need.
Connie: I mean, they are witness participants also. They're witnessing their, uh, their own experiences as they live them in this piece, which will be different every night because once they, they settle into it and give and continue to give themselves permission, you're going to see really subtle changes. I think every night. More discovery.
Mama Dy: I think the best part is you gotta find the joy in it. And that's something that Sydnie taught me, cuz that was one of the first questions. She said, where do you find joy? I was like, oh no, she is not asking me this. She is not asking me this because it really, it, it stumped me for a minute because I was like, are you serious? And then I really had to dig back into, I, I jumped all the way back into my childhood. I said, I find joy hanging out with my sister. I do, of course, I find joy with my husband. But that, but there's something different about sisters hanging out in the kitchen, cooking, laughing, making a mess, making mistakes, laughing at each other, remembering stories, all of that. And then we used that moment in the piece, but I won't tell you where and so. I'm always looking forward to that moment in the piece so that I can actually speak to her. You know, and bring that joy to the piece
Kirya: From its inception, PURPLE has asked collective members to draw on profoundly personal experience, and in many cases to take on challenging personal growth. I asked Sydnie why she wanted to make this a public performance piece. I wouldn't fault her for feeling protective of such sacred work.
Sydnie: I think maybe. The reason why I don't feel, I don't wanna say that I don't feel protective, but I do feel like, because we articulate so clearly who we are and who the work is for, that I'm not as, I'm not worried. That the people who this is for are the gonna be the people who show up and they are gonna get what they need to get from it.
Yes, it is a little bit explanatory and it is a little bit of, you know, let me hold your hand through this particular ritual. And it is meant to be an entry point. And if you have the desire to learn more about these rituals, to learn more about these practices that we're drawing from. It's on you to go down that sacred, sacred rabbit hole. Nothing that we are sharing is, you know, you don't have to be initiated in anything. You don't have to be baptized into anything to participate in it at this first moment of meeting it. And so I think that that's okay and that, that I'm interested in that.
Amy: think Sydnie's choice and title is the first step for, you know, it's purple or ritual in nine spells. And I think it's so brilliant of Sydnie to say, to put it in the title that it is a ritual. And so people know coming in, if they are listening, that they are coming into something that is, um, A ritual and, and they will already, that means be doing the work perhaps of considering for themselves. What does that mean? Questioning for themselves? What does that mean?
Kirya: By performing this healing ritual in a public space, SLMDances is continuing. Shange's lineage. They're making an offering, an act of service to their audiences, to you.
Mama Dy: If the work supposedly is representative of the world, then we have to have, we have to see the world and we have to. Come face to face with our own, perspective, our own beliefs, our own biases, and see, because it's all about what, what are we perceiving? What, what is it that is gonna trigger something, some growth in ourselves?
Kirya: So what will you make of this ritual? What are you prepared, or willfully unprepared to face?
Thank you for joining me. I’ll be back soon to take you on a field trip to visit San Juan Hill, and the elders of the Lincoln Center Square Neighborhood Center. For now, invite you to take one last breath with me…
Take care, and talk soon…
Spotlight in PURPLE is a project of Sydnie L. Mosley Dances. This episode was hosted, written, and produced by me, Kirya Traber. Assistant Producing by Ziiomi Law. Production support by Max Van and Lance John. Music featured in this episode was produced and composed by Line Neesgaurd, Spring Gang, Ebonie Smith and Counterfeit Madison. Special thanks to Shaheim L Page for listening to early drafts. And unending gratitude to Emma Alabaster without whom this project never would have been possible.