Sidra Bell was commissioned as the first Black female choreographer to make works for New York City Ballet (NYCB) in the fall of 2020 (Pixelation in a Wave- Fall Digital Season) and 2021 (Suspended Animation- Fall Fashion Gala/Innovators & Icons Program). The 2021 stage work for NYCB Suspended Animation was nominated for a 2022 Bessie New York Dance & Performance Award (Outstanding Choreographer). It was performed at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC for New York City Ballet’s engagement in May 2022. Recent features of her historical work at NYCB include Essence Magazine, NY1, News12, Playbill and Amsterdam News. She has also been featured in press outlets like

Town & Country, Cero Magazine, Meet the Dance Company Theater Development Fund, Good Company Cleveland WYKC, Dance Magazine, DancePulp, Home4Dance, BiT TV Bulgaria, Turkish TV and CityLights Vancouver. She has been a featured guest speaker on numerous podcasts and at institutions for dance and theater.

Bell’s career has spanned over 20 years and her choreography has been seen throughout the United States and in Denmark, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, China, Canada, Aruba, Korea, Brazil, Amsterdam and Greece. In addition to New York City Ballet, Bell has created over 100 works notably for Nevada Ballet Theatre, Nashville Ballet, BODYTRAFFIC, Ailey II, The Juilliard School, Whim W'Him, Boston Conservatory at Berklee College, River North Dance Chicago, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Sacramento Ballet, Boulder Ballet, New Dance Partners Kansas City, Ballet Austin, Springboard Danse Montréal, Alonzo King's LINES Ballet Schools, University of Texas at Austin, Sam Houston State University, GroundWorks Cleveland, Marymount Manhattan College, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Uppercut Dansteater (Denmark), Motto Dans Kolektif (Turkey) among many others. She has been named the inaugural artist in residence at Gibney Dance from 2022-2025 where during her tenure she will create a new work with acclaimed jazz composer Immanuel Wilkins (The Juilliard School, #1 Jazz Album NY Times 2020) that will premiere in May 2024 after a year-long creative residency made possible by Creative Capital and Gibney Dance.

Sidra Bell Dance New York (SBDNY, Inc.) her boutique nonprofit dance troupe celebrated its 20th anniversary in December 2022 with a retrospective evening of seminal company works at New York City’s Gibney Dance Center entitled IN | REP. The evening of works, which celebrated the company’s repertory, garnered Bell another Bessie New York Dance & Performance Award Nomination for 2023 (Outstanding Choreographer). The ceremony will take place at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park in August 2023. The seven member company tours internationally performing and collaborating with cutting edge institutions in dance, theater, and design including The Met Museum, The Met Breuer,

Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, Manship Theatre Baton Rouge, ODC Theater San Francisco, Dance Mission Theater San Francisco, Chutzpah! Festival Vancouver, BC, Five Moons Dance Festival Oklahoma, One Week Dance Festival Bulgaria, Cape Fear Performing Arts Center North Carolina, Vara Konserthus Sweden, Tangente Montréal and Kungsbacka Teater Sweden to name a few. Its body of work has been presented in venues across the globe including the critically acclaimed evening length works ReVUE, STELLA and MÖNSTER OUTSIDE. The company has been awarded prestigious creative grants from Creative Capital Wild Futures Award, National Dance Project, Yale Entrepreneurial Society, CUNY Dance Initiative and Dance/NYC Dance Advancement Fund.

Bell has been a cultural ambassador for contemporary dance in Bulgaria (America for Bulgaria) and Turkey (the U.S Embassy). She is a celebrated and sought after dance educator and her methodology has been featured in Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, and Dance Teacher Magazine. She is currently a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University where she has also been an artist in residence. She has also held Adjunct Professor positions at Ball State University in Indiana, Georgian Court University in New Jersey, Marymount Manhattan College, LINES B.F.A. Program at Dominican University and Barnard College. She has a B.A. in History from Yale University (named a Yale Scholar) and an MFA in Choreography from Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. Yale has invited her back for a featured Master’s Talk hosted by Silliman College. As a Yale student she founded Alliance for Dance at Yale College which amplified voices for dance on campus through festival events and advocacy. The organization is still prevalent at Yale today. She was a University of Minnesota Theater Arts & Dance Cowles Visiting Artist and an artist in residence at Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle). Her body of work was featured in the Harvard University Theater, Dance & Media course Contemporary Repertory: Dance Authorship in the 21st Century. University of Oklahoma named her the Brackett Distinguished Visiting Artist Chair in 2021 and she was the 2019 Honoree at CPR-Center Performance Research’s Gala in New York City. She was The Spence School (New York City) Distinguished Alumna for 2022.

She has won several awards, notably a 1st Prize for Choreography at the Solo-Tanz Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany in 2011 for her work Grief Point and a 2015 National Dance Project Production Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts. February 3 was named SIDRA BELL DAY by Mayor Thomas Roach in the City of White Plains, NY. In 2012, she was commissioned as the choreographer for the feature film TEST set in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis in 1985. TEST was awarded two grand jury prizes from Outfest. More recently she has acted as a movement advisor for acclaimed Slovenian director and composer Karmina Sîlec on several pieces for vocal theater/opera including 2015’s FAUVEL, 2020’s THRENOS (Slovenia) and 2023’s BABA (San Francisco). She will be an artistic collaborator on an upcoming opera Old Man and the Sea with Sîlec produced by Beth Morrison Projects (premiering at Arizona State University Fall 2023). She has been a pedagogue at many prestigious programs for dance and theater including University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Movement Invention Project, SpringboardX, University of Wisconson-Madison, and Vancouver’s Arts Umbrella among many others . She was the inaugural teaching artist at University of the Arts Sophomore Performance & Coaching Project where she has led a teaching team under her pedagogical methods since 2012. Bell is the founder and creative director of the award winning MODULE LaboratoryTM, a New York City based immersive platform centered in improvisation for intergenerational movement and theater artists.

Bell is a passionate mentor to many upcoming choreographers and has been engaged by institutions and independent artists to adjudicate and mentor student projects (The Juilliard School, CalArts, Hollins University, NYU Tisch, Marymount Manhattan College, NextFest, University of North Carolina School of the Arts to name a few).

Sidra Bell - www.sidrabell.com

Sidra Bell Dance New York - www.sidrabelldanceny.org