top of page
Sydnie Logo _ Black With Signature HDRez-01.png

PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells
April 27-28, 2024 | 
Dance Place, Washington D.C. 
 

 

Inhale. Exhale.

The PURPLE perf​ormance experience occurs in two essential parts:

What does PURPLE sound like?

a lobby pre-show multi media art installation

 

A Ritual In Nine Spells

an evening length choreopoem for the stage

Each section of the production builds upon the next to illuminate the power of

deep sisterhood for social change.

Meet our artistic collaborators.

What does PURPLE sound like?

WDPSL?

What does PURPLE sound like? is our lobby pre-show art installation that activates the oral histories of older adults that we engage in the local communities where we share performances. 

 

PURPLE’s community engagements facilitate the collection of oral histories and making those stories visible through Ebonie Smith's musical production, with the visual elements of Shani Peters' visual installation and Dr. Kim F. Hall's quilts.

Listen to the Amsterdam Houses EP. 

The pre-show installation is free and accessible to the public and reflects the community in each touring location, while the staged performance remains consistent from venue to venue.

Learn more about PURPLE Community Engagement.

See the program from the first What does PURPLE sound like? installation

at Hi-ARTS El Barrio Artspace, 2021.

We can think about our artistic forebears as people in our neighborhoods who have deep and important stories.

-Kim F. Hall, quilter and Barnard’s Lucyle Hook Professor of English and professor of Africana studies

Read more

PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells

ARI9S

PURPLE dances sisterhood; it amplifies the ways we invest in one another, we honor and celebrate each other's brilliance, and how we capture our radical joy. Each of these interactions is a small miracle. That space between women is magic. It's PURPLE, just like Auntie Alice wrote to us so many years ago. That's where there is God. Spirit. True Love.

A Ritual In Nine Spells is an evening length choreopoem devised and performed by the SLMDances collective and guest artists. This is an evening length performance work for a multi-generational, femme ensemble of 12. 

PURPLE: A Ritual In Nine Spells

Devised + Directed by

Sydnie L. Mosley

Associate Direction by

Amy Shoshana Blumberg

Dramaturgy by

Connie Winston

Performance Cast

Dyane Harvey, Veleda Roehl, Lorena Jaramillo, Brittany Grier, Joan Bradford, Jessica Lee, Rebecca Gual, Candance Sumpter, Jazelynn Goudy, Ianne Fields Stewart, Brianne Ford, Rosamond S. King 

 

Text by

Ntozake Shange

With additional text by Justina Grayman, Rebecca Gual, Sydnie L. Mosley, Rosamond S. King, Lorena Jaramillo, Dyane Harvey, Veleda Roehl, Amy Blumberg

 

Music composed by

Counterfeit Madison 

With additional music by Koko Taylor, Christian Scott

Audio Description by Kayla Hamilton and Joselia Rebekah Hughes

Set and Installation Design by Shani Peters

Quilts by Dr. Kim F. Hall

 

With inspiration from

Alice Walker and Ntozake Shange

PURPLE Collabo​rators

PURPLE Artists

What does PURPLE sound like? and A Ritual in Nine Spells are created and sustained with a r​obust cohort of collaborators. At the center are SLMDances Creative Partners. Visit Who We Are to meet our collective members.

 

Guest Artists

Perf​​orming members of the ensemble for A Ritual In Nine Spells, alongside Creative Partners.

 

C​ollaborating Artists

bottom of page