Iowa Alumna and Choreographer Doesn't Dance Around Tough Issues

PHOTO COURTESY TRAVIS COE An artist-activist and educator in New York, Sydnie L. Mosley recently has been named one of Dance Magazine's "25 Dancers to Watch."

Sydnie L. Mosley (09MFA) is living out a lifelong dancer’s dream. Mosley has been honored by former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for her advocacy through the arts and was recently featured on Dance Magazine’s 2024 “25 Dancers to Watch” list as the founder of Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, a Harlem-based dance collective that works for social change.

Founded in 2010, SLMDances is more than a dance studio. Its work celebrates artists who are Black, female, or from other marginalized identities seeking to start conversations about important issues and strengthen connections within and between different groups of people. In 2011, SLMDances premiered the Window Sex Project, which provides space for participants to share stories of gender-based sexual harassment and then use their bodies to process their emotions and create movement.

Since then, SLMDances has also produced CAKE, which focuses on shame surrounding sexuality and women’s bodies; Body Business, which examines the economic challenges dancers face; and PURPLE, a collection of multimedia projects partially inspired by Alice Walker’s The Color Purple that seeks to highlight sisterhood as a source of social change.

Since high school, Mosley has been certain she wanted a life in dance. She studied dance at Barnard College in New York, then received an MFA in choreography from the University of Iowa, where she honed her artistic voice and teaching abilities.

Mosley describes SLMDances as a creative space where everyone is welcome and contributes their vision. While their practice is based in modern and contemporary dance, classes vary widely since each teacher and student offers a unique perspective. However, they share a focus on breathing, creating connection, and providing what she calls “loving feedback” to students and peers.

PHOTOS COURTESY SLMDANCES Sydnie L. Mosley is pictured working with dancers through SLMDances to advocate for gender and racial justice through the arts.

Mosley also seeks to give back to those who create with her in the form of resources and professional development. “Artists who come into SLMDances have access to what I have access to,” she says, “and that is offered in a spirit of reciprocity for their time and their artistry that they offer to the work we do together.”

As Mosley looks to the future of SLMDances, she strives to elevate both its art and community. She plans to expand the reach of PURPLE and the Window Sex Project, including spreading the latter to college campuses across the U.S. She wants to develop collaborations with dancers and choreographers inside and outside of SLMDances to create new and exciting work. And she aspires to focus on her writing to tell the story of her dancing life.

Says Mosley, “The world is my oyster. The world is SLMDances’ oyster. And I’m very excited by dreaming up new possibilities right now.”