Project Description
artistCONNECT
[ dance masterclass series ]
artistCONNECT is a dance masterclass series that connects GroundWorks DanceTheater’s Creative Residency artists and the Northeast Ohio dance community in singular, meaningful learning exchanges.
Sidra Bell
March 3, 2023
5:30 – 7 p.m.
Intermediate/Advanced Level
FREE (Limited Capacity)
Join internationally recognized choreographer Sidra Bell for CONTEMPORARY SYSTEMS – an interior & material approach to movement encourages provocative thought and an immersive approach to the subject matter of the body. Her work demands a high degree of physicality and input from the dancers, encouraging them to execute movement with intention, curiosity, care, rigor, and empathy.
LOCATION
Cleveland State University
Middough Building – 5th Floor
1901 East 13th Street
Cleveland, OH 44114
SIDRA BELL
is the founder of Sidra Bell Dance New York (EST 2001) and a dancer, choreographer, and educator who is currently a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, an Adjunct Professor LINES Ballet/Dominican University and an Adjunct Professor at Ball State University in Indiana. She has been an artist in residence at University of Oklahoma (Brackett Distinguished Visiting Artist Chair), Harvard University, and an Adjunct Professor at Georgian Court University, Marymount Manhattan College and Barnard College.
Bell received a BA in History from Yale University and an MFA in Choreography from Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. She is the founder and creative director of the award winning MODULE Laboratory, a New York City based immersive platform for movement and theater artists. Bell has won several awards, notably a First Prize for Choreography at the Solo Tanz Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany and a National Dance Project Production Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts. In 2017 Mayor Thomas Roach named February 3 “Sidra Bell Day” in White Plains, NY. Her work has been seen throughout the United States and in Denmark, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, China, Canada, Aruba, Korea, Brazil, and Greece.
Bell has created over 100 works notably for Nevada Ballet Theater, BODYTRAFFIC, Ailey II, The Juilliard School, Whim W’Him, Boston Conservatory at Berklee College, River North Dance Chicago, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Sacramento Ballet, Boulder Ballet, New Dance Partners Kansas City, Ballet Austin, Springboard Danse Montréal, Boulder Ballet and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet School, among many others. She was the first Black female choreographer commissioned to create work for New York City Ballet where she created two works for film and the Lincoln Center stage (Fall Fashion Gala 2021 and Innovators & Icons Program).
She has been nominated for a 2022 Bessie NY Dance & Performance Dance (Outstanding Choreographer) for 2021’s SUSPENDED ANIMATION for New York City Ballet.
Photo by Umi Akiyoshi Photography