Lydia Bell
Lydia Bell is an American dancer, choreographer, and performance artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Bell grew up in Portland, Oregon and graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a B.A. in Dance and Classics. Certified at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance in 2012 at Wesleyan's Center for the Arts. ICPP program is designed to address Contemporary Performance's interdisciplinary practices and the co-existence and cross-pollination of idea- and technique-based performance practice. Bell has shown at Arts Cure Center, Envoy enterprises, Eyelevel Gallery, Flux Factory, Kills Center, Recession Art, The Tank and Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Urban Art Projects.
Curation
Bell has curated exhibitions at New York City's Danspace Project including; "A Matter of Practice" in May 2012 featuring Yve Laris Cohen, Xaviera Simmons, Arturo Vidich, and Larissa Velez-Jackson, and an event for the "Food for Thought" series.
Bell also curated "Performing the Precarious: Cut Piece" for dancer Xaviera Simmons for the "Come Together: Surviving Sandy" show
Selected Works
He who blinks first 2009 Performed and choreographed by Lindsay Benedict and Lydia Bell in December 2009 at the Dance Theater Workshop Studio (for Movement Research Open Performance). Two neighbors play with the possibility of a movement collaboration while rehearsing at Chez Bushwick every week.
He who blinks first (with boys) 2010 A collaborative choreographic exploration of trying to be the same, and failing. Through simple gestures and interactions, He Who Blinks First (with boys) expresses the limitations of knowing or understanding another person— can we ever be more than a witness to someone else’s experience? Dancers Reilly and Monnie re-perform the series of movements that Bell and Benedict created during the original investigation: the same piece on different bodies. The new duet plays with the notion of imitation and the perseverance of individuality.
work for pay 2009 A performance piece by Lydia Bell, made in collaboration with unemployed/underemployed artists-turned-dancers. It has been performed at various venues in New York. Artists are paid minimum wage for rehearsal time. The piece allows the artists to demonstrate their marketable skills to audience members. Bell worked with three artists during Summer 2009: Sara K. Edwards, Brock Shorno, and Adriana Young.
show & tell From 2008 to 2010, Bell organized “show & tell,” a monthly work-in-progress series for neighborhood artists in her home.
bedside 2008 A 20 minute piece with performers Khalia Frazier, Owen Roberts and Danya Sherman and original music by Paul Rome. Performed several times throughout the night of an evening event by the AUNTS performance collective. The event, "i believe in you" was a chain curation DANCE project over four consecutive evenings.
Written texts
She was also a contributing writer and editor for Movement Research's print "Journal and Critical Correspondence" blog.
- Cover Artist Rudy Perez
- Movement Research Performance Journal #43 Zeena Parkins
- Woolly Mammoth Comes to Dinner (Kathleen Keogh and Rikki Rothenberg) in conversation with Lydia Bell
- Yelena Gluzman in conversation with Lydia Bell
- Clifford Owens in conversation with Lydia Bell
- Lydia Bell's blog of the Movement Research Festival 2010