Spotlight in PURPLE: The Podcast

We learn about the history of how Sydnie L. Mosley Dances became a collective, the values that guide the work and how those values show up inside their newest work, PURPLE: A Ritual in Nine Spells. [Correction: SLMD was founded in 2010. In the episode, the host says 2014]

This episode features interviews with: Artistic Director Sydnie L. Mosley; SLMDances Creative Partners Jessica Lee, Brittany Grier, Joan Bradford, Candance Sumpter, Rebecca Gual and Lorena Jaramillo; Collaborating Artists: Brianne Ford, Jazelynn S. Goudy, Dyane Harvey, Counterfeit Madison (Sharon Udoh), Rosamond S. King, Amy Shoshana Blumberg and Ianne Fields Stewart.

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Hosting, editing, and production by Kirya Traber
Executive Production by SLMDances

Assistant Production by Ziiomi Law

Production support by Max Van & Lance John

Music produced and composed by Line Neesgaurd, Spring Gang, Ebonie Smith and Counterfeit Madison

Special thanks to Emma Alabaster

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Follow Kirya Traber on social media

Twitter: twitter.com/Kiryatraber

IG instagram.com/kiryat

Website: kiryatraber.com

Follow SLMDances on social media

Twitter: twitter.com/slmdances

Instagram: instagram.com/slmdances

Facebook: facebook.com/sydnielmosleydances

Website: slmdances.com

Sit in on an intimate conversation between Ebony Noelle Golden, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Sydnie L. Mosley about four works of Womanist literature that have influenced PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells.

Ebony Noelle Golden is a theatrical ceremonialist, culture strategist, entrepreneur, and public scholar. In 2009, Ebony founded Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, a culture consultancy that devises systems, strategies, and social justice solutions nationally. In 2020, she founded Jupiter Performance Studio, a space to study and practice Black diasporic performance traditions. Winner of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Transformational Practice Award, Golden works to incite and ignite the creative capacity of everyday folks in service of liberation and collective wellbeing. Her practice is rooted in community-design, ritual performance, and leadership development through a womanist and Black feminist praxis. Invoking messy, magical, and medicinal processes, Ebony and her collaborators, work to conjure a better world. www.bettysdaughterarts.com IG: @ebonynoellegolden

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is cherished by a wide range of communities as an oracle and a vessel of love. Drawing on over 25 years of experience as a writer and facilitator, her inclusive practice finds us and brings us into the ceremonies we have always needed. Her books include: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (AK Press 2020), Dub: Finding Ceremony (Duke Press, 2020), M Archive: After the End of the World (Duke Press 2018), Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (Duke Press, 2016) and Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016). In 2020-2021 Alexis was awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship to work on her forthcoming biography The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde Alexis recently won the 2023 Windham-Campbell Prize in Poetry. Alexis and her partner Sangodare have received many honors,including an Advocate 40 under 40 feature for their decade of work to create an intergenerational living library of Black LGBTQ brilliance called Mobile Homecoming. Alexis lives in Durham, North Carolina where she nurtures and is nurtured by a visionary creative community while scheming towards her dream of being your favorite cousin.

Sydnie L. Mosley​ is an artist-activist and educator who produces experiential dance works with her New York City-based dance-theater collective Sydnie L. Mosley Dances (SLMDances). She won The Bessie for Outstanding Performer as a part of the ensemble of the skeleton architecture, the future of our worlds, and received a special citation from Mayor Bill de Blasio for using her talents in dance to fuel social change. As an educator, she designed and teaches Barnard College's Dance in the City Pre-College Program. She sits on the Advisory Committee to Dance/NYC. Her writing has appeared in Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, and Dance Magazine.

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Hosting, editing, and production by Kirya Traber
Executive Production by SLMDances

Assistant Production by Ziiomi Law

Production support by Max Van & Lance John

Music produced and composed by Line Neesgaurd, Spring Gang, Ebonie Smith and Counterfeit Madison

Special thanks to Emma Alabaster

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Follow Kirya Traber on social media

Twitter: twitter.com/Kiryatraber

IG instagram.com/kiryat

Website: kiryatraber.com

Follow SLMDances on social media

Twitter: twitter.com/slmdances

Instagram: instagram.com/slmdances

Facebook: facebook.com/sydnielmosleydances

Website: slmdances.com

Welcome to Spotlight in PURPLE! This is a gift for you from SLMDances. This podcast is a companion to handmade zines - analog and digital - created for you, our treasured community. With both the zines and podcast, we invite you to indulge in an at home sensory experience. To learn more about SLMDances and Spotlight in PURPLE, visit: slmdances.com/sip

The inaugural podcast episode includes storytelling with SLMDances Creative Partners and a poem by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte created as a literary contact-improvisation between our ensemble dancing and Timothy's writing.

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This podcast features SLMDances Creative Partners Jessica Lee, Brittany Grier, Joan Bradford, Angelica Mondol Viana, Bianca Paige Smith, and Maya Simone Z. in conversation. The poetry is written and spoken by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte, with Noah Jackson on bass and Ebonie Smith on drums and production.

Spotlight in PURPLE has been produced and edited by Jessica Lee, Bianca Paige Smith and Lorena Jaramillo, and funded in part by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement.

SLMDances is directed by Artistic Director Sydnie L. Mosley, Strategic Visioning Partner A. Nia Austin-Edwards, and Artistic Visioning Partner Allegra Romita.

Follow SLMDances on social media.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/slmdances

Instagram: http://instagram.com/slmdances

Facebook: http://facebook.com/sydnielmosleydances

Website: slmdances.com

Spotlight in PURPLE, season 2 will be a three episode series following the unique creative process of the world premiere of the creation of PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells - an ensemble performance premiering at Lincoln Center in June 2023.

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Season 2 of Spotlight in PURPLE has been created, hosted, produced and edited by Kirya Traber. Producing assistance by Ziiomi Law.

Music featured was produced by Counterfeit Madison

Follow Kirya Traber on social media

Twitter: @Kiryatraber

IG: @KiryaT

Website: kiryatraber.com

Follow SLMDances on social media

Twitter: http://twitter.com/slmdances

Instagram: http://instagram.com/slmdances

Facebook: http://facebook.com/sydnielmosleydances

Website: slmdances.com

We continue the journey and hear about the place where PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells was developed: the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which is also the neighborhood formerly known as San Juan Hill, and the community engagement process with the Lincoln Square Neighborhood center.

• More information on SLMD’s Community Engagement for PURPLE
• SLMD’s Community Engagement Curriculum
• Listen to the full EP: What Does PURPLE Sound Like
• Lincoln Center’s Legacies of San Juan Hill website

This episode features interviews with: Artistic Director Sydnie L. Mosley; SLMDances Creative Partners Brittany Grier and Candance Sumpter; and Community partners Jacqueline Wright and Marie Stephen. Additionally featuring excerpts from interview footage recorded in 1985 by New York City’s municipal broadcast television station, WNYC-TV, for Neighborhood Voices, a limited series on changing city neighborhoods, archived by the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.

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Follow Kirya Traber on social media

Twitter: twitter.com/Kiryatraber

IG instagram.com/kiryat

Website: kiryatraber.com

Follow SLMDances on social media

Twitter: twitter.com/slmdances

Instagram: nstagram.com/slmdances

Facebook: facebook.com/sydnielmosleydances

Website: slmdances.com