The Gathering 2017: Advocating for Black Female Choreographers in the Contemporary Dance World

The Gathering 2017: Advocating for Black Female Choreographers in the Contemporary Dance World—livestreamed from Gibney Dance's Agnes Varis Center for the Performing Arts in New York City on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Sunday 8 January at 3:30 p.m.-6 p.m. PST (San Francisco) / 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m. CST (Chicago) / 6:30 p.m.-9 p.m. EST (New York). 

Direct your comments to @CamilleABrown. Facilitators' Twitter handles are: @bettysdaughter1, @sydmosley. The Gathering partner Twitter handles are: @GibneyDance, @TheFieldNYC, @DanceNYC.

Conceived by choreographer Camille A. Brown in 2014, The Gathering serves as an open forum for intergenerational black female artists to support one another and to advocate for greater cultural equity and acknowledgement in the contemporary dance world. As trendsetters and pioneers who merit more widespread public recognition for their innovations, this evolving group of black choreographers meets annually to examine the reasons for this precedent and to embark on a mission to make their work more broadly accessible and appreciated.

The Gathering 2017 thanks its Partners: The Howard Gilman Foundation, Gibney Dance, The Field, and Dance/NYC.

The Gathering 2017
Co-Facilitated by Ebony Noelle Golden and Sydnie Mosley, The Gathering 2017 will focus on sharpening our individual and collective strategies for sustained action to support Black women in the dance field. How can we leverage the work that has already been done to impact moving forward?

Indira Goodwine, Managing Director, Camille A. Brown & Dancers
Lane Harwell, Executive Director, Dance/NYC

Guided by an unflinching pursuit of creative emancipation, cultural wellness, and social justice Ebony Noelle Golden serves as principal engagement strategist at Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative and Body Ecology Womanist Performance Project's artistic director. She works as a cultural strategist, organizer, and performance artist.  

As a strategist, she designs, implements, and evaluates projects and initiatives that push for social transformation. As an artist, Golden stages site-specific rituals + live art productions that profoundly explore the complexities of freedom in the time of now. In 2016, she served as a lecturer of Womanist and Black Feminist performance art at The New School and co-edited an anthology of experimental womanist writing published by Obsidian Journal of Literature and Arts.

In 2017, Golden will serve as Activist-in-Residence at the University of Oklahoma and Artist-in-Residence at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. During this time, Golden will develop 125th and Freedom, a performance art installation of ten choreopoetic rituals along 125th Street between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers exploring home, migration, displacement, and the eradication of black space due to gentrification. For more information, visit www.bettysdaughterarts.com

Sydnie L. Mosley is an artist-activist and educator who produces experiential dance works with her all-women company SLMDances. Through her choreographic work, the company works in communities to organize for gender and racial justice. Her evening length dances, The Window Sex Project and BodyBusiness, their creative processes, and performance experiences are a model for dance-activism. 

Sydnie's recognitions include: The Field Leadership Fund (2015-2017); CUNY Dance Initiative (AIR 2016); Dancing While Black Artist Fellowship (2015-2016), and The Performance Project @ University Settlement (AIR 2015-2016); Create Change Fellowship with The Laundromat Project (2013); the Gibney Dance Institute for Community Action Training (2013); and the inaugural Barnard Center for Research on Women Alumnae Fellow (2011). She earned her MFA from the University of Iowa, and earned her BA from Barnard College at Columbia University.

Sydnie's recent performance projects include: the skeleton architecture, the future of our worldscurated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, and Gainin' On Ya, a collaboration with Aisha Cousins. Sydnie danced with Christal Brown's INSPIRIT (2010-2013) and continues to appear as a guest artist for Brooklyn Ballet. She is an Adjunct Lecturer with the Barnard College Dance Department, and designed the College's Dance in the City Pre-College Program.

An advocate for the field, Sydnie sits on the Advisory Committee to Dance/NYC. She has contributed writing to Dance Magazine and The Dance Enthusiast.

The Gathering 2017 Advisory Board
Thank you for your generosity & guidance!

Cynthia Oliver, Paloma McGregor, Maria Bauman, Marjani Forte, Nia Love, Michelle Gibson, Christal Brown, and Amara Tabor-Smith.

About HowlRound TV

HowlRound TV is a global, commons-based peer produced, open access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound. HowlRound TV is a free and shared resource for live conversations and performances relevant to the world's performing arts and cultural fields. Its mission is to break geographic isolation, promote resource sharing, and to develop our knowledge commons collectively. Participate in a community of peer organizations revolutionizing the flow of information, knowledge, and access in our field by becoming a producer and co-producing with us. Learn more by going to our participate page. For any other queries, email [email protected], or call Vijay Mathew at +1 917.686.3185 Signal/WhatsApp. View the video archive of past events.