Jan 2025 issue. Vol 10

SIDRA BELL

is the founder of Sidra Bell DanceNew York.

Her work has been seen throughout theUnited States, Denmark, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, China, Canada, Aruba, Korea, Brazil, and Greece.

Sidra has created over 100 works, most notably for Nevada Ballet Theater, NashvilleBallet, BodyTraffic, Ailley II, TheJulliard School, Whim W'Him, Boston Conservatory at BerkleeCollege, River North Dance Chicago, NYU Tish Schoolof Arts, Sacramento Ballet, Boulder Ballet, Motto Dans Kolectif Turkey, and many more.

SIDRA BELL DANCE NEW YORK is an internationally recognized boutiquebrand of prolific movement illustrators based in New York City that presents and fosters a canon of innovativeand progressivedance theater programming in realms of ideas, environs and (im)possibilities.

Sidra took the time to talk with our publisher, Tony Smith. We thank her truly.

Tony Smith One On One With SIDRA

Hello Sidra I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today So, how are you and tell me how have things been the past couple of months.

It's been busy. We had our world premiere at downtown at Gibney dance, where I'm an artist in residence, and it was a collaboration with Emmanuel Wilkins quartet, and that was, uh, funded by Creative Capital. So that was a huge year long arc of process and bringing it to stage. And it was sold out.

So that was very cool. Never anything wrong with a sell out Kudos to that.

it was very momentous. And there's, you know, just a lot of interest in the live music and dance collaboration aspect of it, and people felt, I think they felt that there was something fresh happening in my work. You know, I've had a, I have a long catalog, so they felt like it was a departure in some ways, but also for me, it was like returning home, because I started out with live music with my dad, you know, the early days. So it felt very circular and like cyclical for me.

What made you decide to start that collaboration, like you, say, a year or so ago?

Yeah, well, even beyond, because I met Emmanuel. I have relationships with a lot of the institutions in New York, like Juilliard and NYU. And he was Juilliard, and I think he just heard about my show from one of his classmates. He was graduating that year, the following and he came down to Brooklyn to what was the C Kirkland Art Center, and we met in the hallway after the show. I think he liked it, you know, I just had a good energy. So I said, Let's do something together. You know, I'm always interested in young musicians. And it was just kind of impromptu. And so it was like a co led piece. It's called communion. And he really we were, because of the grant, we're able to spend time with him, just like long rehearsals where he was improvising, we were improvising with my dancers. And so that's where it became very organic and special, I think And then his his band is fabulous. They're all all like independent musicians of their own right. And then Micah Thomas and Rick Rosado, so they, they're actually at the Village Vanguard next.

Do you see more of these in the future?

Bigger piece?Yeah. I mean, when you came to North Carolina, really in that piece, old man in the sea, right?Apprentice, actually, because I've never worked on a huge opera like that. So I've been putting myself and myself in scenarios where I can really learn as an apprentice.

Again, it was great. I mean, I movement directed with the director, but, yeah, I just love learning about the different facets of the theater and how you can expand and collapse things in a space. Um. Um, so I feel like each production I do where it's like, really, my production just gets bigger and bigger, and the scope and the ideas I've done set design before with New Orleans called Monster outside that had all these, like, mirrored panels in the space that almost look like a fractured brain. Yeah, you know, I think it always depends on the director, but, yeah, I just love learning about the different facets of the theater and how you can expand and collapse things in a space. Um. Um, so I feel like each production I do where it's like, really, my production just gets bigger and bigger, and the scope and the ideas I've done set design before with New Orleans called Monster outside that had all these, like, mirrored panels in the space that almost look like a fractured brain. Yeah, you know, I think it always depends.

I was laughing at the smile on your face when you said "Fractured Braid". What's with that?

It looked very prismatic. It was with a Swedish band, and that was another big funded piece, the National Dance Project. But even when I don't have a big budget, I try to, like, rearrange things in the space. So there's a particularity to it.

And now working with all these different artists on the road and learning about, you know, the different techniques of the theater, I just think I keep growing. I worked on a piece in the fall. I think I may have told you about it with Derek Forger. He's a guy named visual artist. You probably seen images online, but that was in an art gallery, and I designed a dance piece in collaboration with him that happened within the art gallery. And he built this kind of circus tent in the space, you know, and I was watching the woodworkers and how they do that. And I just love seeing the mechanics of production. So, yeah, I just keep expanding in that way, the road and learning about, you know, the different techniques of the theater, I just think I keep growing.

Have you ever had the thought of, I don't want to do this anymore?

I've been the heaviness, and the burden is a lot, but I've been thinking, you know, every day there's a little bit of struggle, because it's, you're getting up, and it's really in your body too, like I'm still very much embodied in my practice. So you have to connect to purpose every day. I think I've like in the past few years, I feel like I've gotten more solid and like how my walk within the art form is also my walk within my faith. So that really helps, like, connect to the thing that I was given that I need to do, rather than the burden of it Like it never feels like a job.

It feels like a calling. And within that you can kind of be inside of the struggle that it can be and you're tired and there's a lot of light in it. It's like bringing light in. So that's how I've learned to think about it, because I realized a lot of it's not in my control, like it's the thing that I'm supposed to be doing, and also connected to just, you know, bat way back I was a very shy child, so I feel like the expression, and still, I'm pretty reserved in a lot of ways. I feel like my best expression is when I'm, like, really creating things, and in any way it can be in the studio, or working on something on my computer, or imagining things, developing idea and talking about the art form, or steward, stewardship. And so I feel like I'm at my best when I'm creating. And I think again, that kind of ties up in what we're all given is, like, a very special light to do something. I think work is good too.

You were talking about stewardship. You mentioned that two or three times. Exactly. How important is that to you in the old scope of all that you're doing,?

As an artist, it can't all be kind of reciprocating in you have to give out. That's what makes the circle work. So I think for me, I have been interested in working on this kind of living archive project, and I was able to show it a couple times so far. It's like, I keep a very fastidious film and photography and even, like costume archive. this couple years ago.

I had this small gallery of writings and costumes and visuals that people could walk through and see, like the trajectory of my artistic practice, and we just did it at my local public library up here in Westchester a couple months ago. So part of that, I think, is processing the work like to me, it feels kind of endless to just keep making it So for me, doing the archive process has been good to look at my work, not just make it constantly, but like, what did it all mean, and what does it mean to everyone else, and then what does it mean to my place in the lineage of works? So I'm much older now, passing away some I just had a mentor that passed away, that was a really meaningful person in my life, and I had all his archives He gave them to me because he wasn't part of the digital age Whereas I'm firmly in the digital age, I'm interested in, like, how to take care of my own work, but also take care of others and and also, I think there's something beautiful as we do encounter a hard arts kind of time for the arts, we need to be able to language what we're doing. Why is it essential?Why is it important?Why is it vital?I think we're losing some of that because there's such a proliferation of things happening, it's hard to digest everything.

And those were the words of the amazing Sidra Bell.

"Dance is avehicle to navigate personal rituals and translate the exquisite rawness of being alive.Human feeling is beyond language and is amplified in the complicated websystems of the body.Our bodies are ever-changing networks of tiny spirited dances that collect and manage our memories; the corporeal, mysterious, and cognitive.When I dance it allows the thunderous echo of my heart and constant oscillation of my breath to spread to others."

sidra bell