Our Story
A Brief Herstory of
SLMDances
2011
SLMDances organized its first community workshops in Harlem that created space for women to share their stories of gender-based street harassment, exchange practical strategies, create movement based on their experiences, and fellowship with others.
2013
SLMDances shifts from project-to-project to a consistent company structure to facilitate ongoing activism, touring, and the development of new work. We define core values.
2015
SLMDances receives its first grants and BodyBusiness premieres at University Settlement, addressing the economic circumstances of dancers in NYC. These collaborations helped us clarify our values in building mutually beneficial partnerships with institutions.
2017
SLMDances implemented a new 3 person leadership team called Visioning Partners. Sydnie began to facilitate artistic residencies at colleges and universities around the country, expanding our education programming.
2019
SLMDances reimagines itself as a Collective. We hyper focus on research, creation and development of PURPLE and invest in a new cohort of collaborators.
2021
Our work continues to evolve and defy genres with What does PURPLE sound like? We continue to build capacity through financial resources and expanded leadership.
2010
Sydnie L. Mosley Dances (SLMDances) emerged over the course of 2010, performing throughout New York City on a project-to-project basis.
2012
The Window Sex Project premieres in Harlem.
2014
SLMDances hosts its first audition and pilots its Professional Development workshops. CAKE premieres making clear our commitment to the stories of Black women and girls.
2016
SLMDances entered a performance hiatus, de-prioritizing performance and producing new work as its main activities and focused on strategic planning.
2018
SLMDances was awarded a multi-year Manhattan Community Artist Residency through Lincoln Center Education to develop our newest work PURPLE.
The Visioning Partners co-develop the language of Creative Partner to describe the role of SLMDances artists: dancer – teacher – organizer – badasses who embody our core values.
2020
SLMDances rests, grieves, and nurtures relationships with our community engagement partners. We develop our virtual PD for the People! course and launched Spotlight in PURPLE, a podcast and virtual experience.
2023
SLMDances produces the PURPLE Universe featuring PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells at Lincoln Center. It is SLMDances' first production of its size, scope, and scale, raising the bar in production value + community impact.
2022
SLMDances returns to in person rehearsal ritual and a series of creative bubble residencies (with covid precautions in place) to continue PURPLE creative development. Performance highlights include Harlem Stage EMoves.
2024
SLMDances produces its first PURPLE tour to Dance Place in Washington, D.C.
SLMDances sunsets the Creative Partner role and shifts to a pick up company model due to lack of funds and leadership's lack of capacity for management. We are transforming and entering a new phase of strategic visioning.