The Zora Project

Tanya Birl-Torres's multiyear residency honoring Zora Neale Hurston through community-engaged movement, folktales, and ritual rooted in African diasporic practice.

Why go

The project traces Hurston's methodology of "gathering the folk" across geographies—from Jamaica to Alabama to Brooklyn—creating participatory workshops that activate her legacy as choreographer, folklorist, and anthropologist. Birl-Torres's second year expands the work into embodied, intergenerational community activations rather than traditional

What to expect

Monthly Movement Mondays combining guided somatic practice, story sharing on Hurston's work, and exploration of folk dance; past programs have included folktale workshops, reconstructions of Hurston's lost choreographic works, and work-song traditions. Sessions are participatory and require no dance experience.

Things to know

• Tanya Birl-Torres is a choreographer, movement director, and systems-change facilitator with a decade of Broadway performance and theater di
• The Zora Project is The Shed's 2025–2026 Social Practice Artist-in-Residence, her second year after a successful first residency with collab
• The project traces migration patterns from the Caribbean through the American South to Northern cities, mirroring Hurston's own travels and
• Past 2025 workshops included The Anatomy of a Folktale, The Fire Dance (exploring Hurston's lost choreographic works), and Glitter in the Du
• Upcoming community partnerships include residencies in Jamaica, Alabama, and Brooklyn, plus collaboration with Columbia University's OHMA an
• Birl-Torres received the 2024 MAP Fund Grant and was named a 2023 NewYorker 4 NewYork Award recipient for "breaking ceilings in NYC and beyo

Plan your visit

Movement Mondays are free and open to all levels; upcoming sessions are June 8 at Hi-ARTS in Brooklyn, July 6 on the High Line, and August 3 at The Shed's Tisch Skylights (Level 8). RSVP required via Google Forms linked on the page.