Sydney Jackson

Artist Biography

Sydney Jackson has worked throughout the valley since 2012, serving as both collaborator and performer for much of her professional career. Jackson considers herself a movement artist, using the experience of motion of the body as her source, and choreography as her medium. She has worked with choreographers including Mary Fitzgerald, Liliana Gomez, Jessica Rajko, Elizabeth Johnson, Eileen Standley, and Jenny Gerena. Jackson recently was a part of the remounted production of Jessica Rajko’s I’m Not as Think as You Drunk I Am, of which she was an original performer and collaborator in 2015. She has also collaborated and performed in various socially engaged pieces including work by Elizabeth Johnson in two intergenerational pieces through the Mesa Spark! Festivals in 2014 and 2015. Internationally, she has performed with movement artists Lily Kiara and Michael Schumacher, and with Susanne Marx for the WhyNot Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her choreographed piece titled A Flamboyance was selected for ASU’s Dance Annual show, Inventions and Conventions in 2016. She recently was selected as a resident artist of [nueBOX]’s SEED residency, collaborating with Leah Marshe and Mike Pfitzer to create their piece, Sound+Movement+Words. During this residency they taught a workshop for artists of different mediums, joining modalities into performance pieces. She also performed her work “The We in the I” as part of Arizona’s first Blaktina Dance Festival this summer. For this piece she collaborated with choreographer Reyna Montoya and composers Raquel Denis and Ileana Salinas. This fall, Jackson will be teaching a three part movement workshop for all levels, offered through [nueBOX] and the Mesa Arts Center. In January 2018 she will be featured in multiple pieces submitted to the Breaking Ground Festival. Her fundamental training places an understanding of kinesiology and physiology at the forefront. Concepts to enhance understanding of self and movement were introduced to her during her training and prove to serve her today. The basis of Jackson’s current practice is rooted in a somatic understanding, having studied various modalities including Feldenkrais with Richard Goldsand and shiatsu with Mary Fitzgerald. Other somatic practices teachings, particularly in bodywork have been under Tim O’Donnell and various other somatic practices have been introduced and practiced under Eileen Standley.