Year: 2025-2026
DanceForce Member: Judy Hussie-Taylor
Artist: Symara Sarai
Community Partner: Elena Mosley
Audience: 340
County: Columbia
Danspace Project (NYC) is commissioning Bessie “Break Out” Award winning choreographer Symara Sarai to create a new work to premiere in Fall 2025, with a three-night run reaching approximately 300 audience members. Danspace Project is proposing a New York State Dance Force Residency in Hudson, New York to support the development of her/their new work and to provide a nurturing environment outside of New York City in order to connect with the Hudson Valley community.
Symara Sarai (they/she), a Portland, Oregon native currently residing in Brooklyn, has immersed herself in interdisciplinary and choreographic studies globally. Sarai has performed at Danspace Project most recently in our DraftWork series which is an important launching pad for early career artists. A 2023 Bessie Winner for Breakout Choreographer, Symara is also a recipient of the Dai Ailian Foundation Scholarship based in Trinidad and Tobago. The scholarship led her to Beijing, China where she spent two years gaining an associate degree in modern choreography at the renowned Beijing Dance Academy. Symara is a 2019 graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance Program. Previously she was a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Artist 23/24 as well as a 23/24 Women in Motion Commissioned artist. She was also a resident artist for Bearnstow, Gibney 6.2 Work Up, Gallim’s 2022 Moving Artist’s Residency, BAX’s Fall 2022 Space Grant Program, and Center for Performance Research’s 2022 AIR Program. Their work as a performer and maker has been reviewed and featured in the NY Times, Dance Enthusiast, Fjord, as well as promoted through Forbes. They have presented work at New York Live Arts, The Clarice at UMD, The LGBT Center in NY, Judson Church, BAAD, Kestrels, and other venues throughout the United States, China, and Germany. She is currently an Urban Bush Women company member.
Over the years Danspace Project has partnered with a number of extraordinary upstate residency centers including Denniston Hill in 2023, Catalyst Center in Delaware County in 2024 and notably with the Petronio Residency Center (PRC) in Greene County from 2018 until they closed their doors in 2023. The PRC residencies, especially pre-pandemic, were fruitful on many levels especially when the artists were able to share their work with the local community in the Hudson region. In 2019-20 we were able to collaborate with NYS DanceForce member Elena Moseley to coordinate showings and workshops with choreographers.
In the coming year, Danspace would like to reconnect with the Hudson community and collaborate with Elena Moseley to locate a residency partner and to assist with a public workshop and/or lec-dem showing for Sarai with youth or the general public. The Danspace curatorial team, Seta Morton and Judy Hussie-Taylor, have initiated conversations with Elena who is working to identify appropriate partners but as of this writing we have not yet confirmed the residency location. Possible sites include Kaatsbaan, Sondra Loring’s studio, and Denniston Hill.