Sydney Magdalene Magruder Washington is an American ballet dancer, actress, blogger, and mental health advocate. She was listed as one of ''21 Fierce Black Feminists To Follow'' by ''
HuffPost
''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...
'' in 2017 and included in ''Woke 100 Women'' by ''
Essence
Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...
'' in 2018.
Career
She works as a freelance ballet dancer and musical theatre actress in New York City and is signed with Resolute Artists Agency. She has danced in productions of the ballets ''
The Nutcracker
''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Opus number, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. Th ...
'', ''
Swan Lake
''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoje ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, links=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failu ...
'', ''
Les Sylphides
() is a short, non-narrative '' ballet blanc'' to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov.
The ballet, described as a "romantic reverie","Ballet Theater", until 1955. A compact disk of ABT's product ...
'', and ''
The Firebird
''The Firebird'' (; ) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who c ...
'' and in the musicals ''
Anything Goes
''Anything Goes'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, revised considerably by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madc ...
'', ''
Godspell
''Godspell'' is a musical in two acts with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by John-Michael Tebelak. The show is structured as a series of parables, primarily based on the Gospel of Matthew, interspersed with music mostly set t ...
'', ''
Curtains
A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or (in the case of a shower curtain) water.
Curtains are often hung on the inside of a building's windows to block the passage of light. For instan ...
'', and ''
The Wiz
''The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz"'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls (and others) and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's children's novel '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' ...
''.
Magruder Washington is a
mental health
Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...
activist and advocates for
mental illness
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
awareness, particularly for women of color, LGBTQ people, and dancers. Magrduer Washington launched a blog called ''The Black Swan Diaries'' where she writes about her experiences as a queer, black, Catholic woman in dance living with mental illness. She uses her blog as a platform to encourage breaking the stigma of mental illness. On August 3, 2017, she launched a private online community, called ''Warrior Swans (Ballerinas for Mental Health)'', for pre-professional and professional dancers struggling with mental health issues.
[ She also uses her ]Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
and YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
accounts for advocacy.
On 7 January 2019 she served as a panelist for ''Open Spectrum: A Brilliant Darkness - A Conversation with Artists on Mental Health'' at New York Live Arts
New York Live Arts (Live Arts) is a movement-focused arts organization in New York City that serves as the home of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The building was formerly the home of Dance Theatre Workshop, with which the Bill T. J ...
. She is a mentor for Brown Girls Do Ballet Ambassador Program, helping young dancers of color who are working towards professional careers in dance.
Magruder Washington has been featured in ''Teen Vogue
''Teen Vogue'' is an American progressive online publication, formerly in print, launched in January 2003, as a sister publication to '' Vogue'', targeted at teenage girls and young women. Like ''Vogue'', it included stories about fashion and ...
'', ''Pointe
Pointe technique ( ) is part of classical ballet involving a technique that concerns ''pointe work'', in which a ballet dancer supports all body weight on the tips of fully extended feet when wearing pointe shoes. A dancer is said to be ''en po ...
'', ''Dance Magazine
''Dance Magazine'' is an American trade publication for dance. It was first published in June 1927 as ''The American Dancer''. ''Dance Magazine'' is currently part of Dance Media, led by longtime arts publisher Joanna Harp as president, and has mu ...
'', ''O, The Oprah Magazine
''O, The Oprah Magazine'', also known simply as ''O'', is an American monthly magazine founded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Communications. In 2021, Winfrey and Hearst rebranded it as ''Oprah Daily''.
Overview
It was first pu ...
'', ''BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...
'', and ''Health
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...
''.[ She was ranked 44th in ''Woke 100 Women'' by '']Essence
Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...
'' and was featured in the ''HuffPost
''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...
'' list ''21 Fierce Black Feminists''.
Personal life
Magruder Washington has Asperger syndrome
Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's syndrome or Asperger's, is a diagnostic label that has historically been used to describe a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and no ...
, panic disorder
Panic disorder is a mental disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder, characterized by reoccurring unexpected panic attacks. Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear that may include palpitations, sweating, shaking, shortness of breath ...
with agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no way to escape. These situations can include public transit, shopping centers, crowds and q ...
, and major depressive disorder
Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive depression (mood), low mood, low self-esteem, and anhedonia, loss of interest or pleasure in normally ...
. Prior to being correctly diagnosed with autism, she was misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple con ...
aged 11.
As a teenager, Magruder Washington no longer identified with Pentecostalism and spent two years exploring Judaism
Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
and Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. She later converted to Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, taking the confirmation
In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant (religion), covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. The ceremony typically involves laying on o ...
name Magdalene. She is a parishioner at St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church on the Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by 96th Street (Manhattan), 96th Street to the north, the East River to the e ...
of Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. Magruder Washington joined ''Blessed is She'', an online community for Catholic women in the United States, but faced discrimination in the group from members who did not approve of her sexual orientation and marriage. She was often reminded by members of the Catholic Church's teachings on homosexuality. She later described her exclusion in the group on her blog, stating that she did not fit well in the group of mostly white, middle class, heterosexual Catholic women.
She is openly lesbian
A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...
and married Elena Washington in an interdenominational
Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...
ceremony at Riverside Church
Riverside Church is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan, Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The church is associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the Un ...
in Morningside Heights
Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningsi ...
on May 12, 2017.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Washington, Sydney Magruder
Living people
21st-century American ballet dancers
African-American ballerinas
African-American Catholics
American musical theatre actresses
American people of Bangladeshi descent
American women bloggers
American bloggers
American LGBTQ dancers
Catholic feminists
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Evangelicalism
Former Pentecostals
American lesbian actresses
Lesbian dancers
African-American LGBTQ people
LGBTQ Roman Catholics
LGBTQ people from Maryland
Mental health activists
People from Mitchellville, Maryland
People with Asperger syndrome
Dancers with disabilities
Autistic actors
American actors with disabilities
LGBTQ actors with disabilities
Skidmore College alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
Dancers from Maryland
21st-century African-American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century African-American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Autistic LGBTQ people
LGBTQ writers with disabilities
LGBTQ ballet dancers
People with mood disorders