Work-In-Progress Showing: A Side Of The World For A Canvas with SLMDances 

Work-In-Progress Showing: A Side Of The World For A Canvas 
Based on the work of Zora Neale Hurston
with SLMDances
Saturday May 16, 2026, 2-4PM
Open to all ages

WHAT TO EXPECT: 
Join SLMDances for a public offering as the culmination of their Works & Process Residency at Bethany Arts Community for their new work in development, A Side Of The World For A Canvas, based on the work of Zora Neale Hurston.  

This informal sharing will include a performance of their work-in-progress developed during their residency week, and invite participation and feedback from witnesses. Open to all ages.  

This program will be hosted outside with masking encouraged. In the case of inclement weather, we will move inside, and masks will be required for attendees. Please bring a mask of your own; we will have masks available onsite. 

A SIDE OF THE WORLD FOR A CANVAS: 
The primary focus of this residency is to develop A Side of the World For A Canvas through rehearsal, dramaturgy, embodied research, collective practice, and reflection. A Side Of The World For A Canvas is a site-responsive dance-theater work crafted to highlight Zora Neale Hurston’s legacy as a dance and theater maker, a foremother of Black feminism, and an artist whose work across media amplified the stories of everyday Black folks. The title is a quote drawn from her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God that describes the ease with which men could shoot the breeze and tell stories to one another crafting their own version of reality. In this work, women and femmes assume this agency through story telling creating their own possibilities. 

Key questions the artists will investigate include: How do we continue to honor Zora throughout the creative process? How does each place inform the performance work? 

How does ethnography live in this creative process and work? 

SYDNIE L. MOSLEY 
Sydnie L. Mosley is an award-winning choreographer and writer renowned for socially aware creative work with her collective SLMDances. Her repertoire including her critically acclaimed evening length dances PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells (world premiere Lincoln Center 2023, two-time Bessie nominated), The Window Sex Project, and BodyBusiness—as well as their creative processes—are a model for dance-activism. She was one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2024 and recognized by former NYC Mayor de Blasio in 2017 for using dance to fuel social change. Sydnie was part of the Bessie Award-winning skeleton architecture, the future of our worlds, curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa. In addition to her own work—which she has performed from Lincoln Center to the legendary Apollo Theater—she performed with Christal Brown’s INSPIRIT (2010-2013) and Brooklyn Ballet (2009-2019). She has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in ESSENCE, Dance Magazine, and The Washington Post. SLMDances has danced across the US, including the Brooklyn Museum, Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State, Dance Brigade (San Francisco), Dance Place (Washington DC), Joyce Soho, Harlem Stage, Judson Church, and many more. She recently served as Assistant Choreographer for the first-ever full staging of Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk presented by Yale Repertory Theatre, a play that was lost to time until the Library of Congress uncovered the drama in 1997. 

Find SLMDances: https://www.sydnielmosley.com/ 

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This event is an Artist Residency Community Program. As part of a residency at BAC, we ask each artist to build and facilitate a Community Program. Community Programs are a unique opportunity for both artists-in-residence and our local community to gather, engage, and be in conversation with one another through art. Community Programs are free engagements open to the public and/or in collaboration with a local community partner. 

This Residency and Community Program are made possible through BAC’s partnership with Works & Process at the Guggenheim. BAC is proud to partner with Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim to support creators of the performing arts and incubate new works. As two organizations committed to supporting artists across disciplines and in various stages of their artistic process, the partnership is a natural fit. 

Image Credit: Courtesy of SLMDances; Photograph by Effy Grey