Right before spring break in March, New York City choreographer Sidra Bell came down to Shenandoah University to do two days of filming for her spring dance concert work “Inhabitant.” Sidra Bell Dance New York is an internationally recognized boutique brand of prolific movement illustrators based in New York City that presents and fosters a canon of innovative and progressive dance theatre in realms of ideas, environs and (im)possibilities.
“The experience working with Bell was an amazing inside view and opportunity for the students, seeing how a professional approach to dance filmmaking is undertaken by an independent artist,” said Chair of Dance Division and Associate Professor of Dance Maurice Fraga, M.F.A.
Bell has won several awards, notably a first prize for choreography at the Solo-Tanz Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany in 2011 for “Grief Point.,” and a 2015 National Dance Project Production Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts. Bell’s company was one of 25 recipients of the Dance Advancement Fund from Dance/NYC in 2017. 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. Visit www.sidrabelldanceny.org to learn more.