Cybele Moon
Cybele Moon is a costume designer, educator, and visual artist currently based in Philadelphia.
As the Costume Assistant for the Dance Department at Swarthmore, she coordinates costumes for 10 - 20 dance pieces each year as part of 2 - 3 mainstage productions. She oversees and instructs student costume shop assistants and wardrobe crew for Dance Department productions and mentors student choreographers on costume design concepts.
Previous academic appointments have included three years as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Costume Design at Wesleyan University and two years as an Assistant Professor of Costume Design at East Carolina University. As a professor she has taught multiple design related courses, mentored and advised students, organized costume, theater and arts events for the community, and received grants for various projects.
Cybele has also held adjunct Instructor or costume design positions with Temple University, University of the Arts, Austin Community College, Cal State San Marcos, and the California Institute of the Arts, in addition to giving numerous guest lectures on costume design for theater or dance, across the United States.
As a costumer, Cybele has been commissioned by theater and dance companies, as well as colleges and universities, to design costumes for over 160 productions in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. Her costumes have traveled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and the Mahalango Festival in Indonesia. Designing for ten years in Chicago, she was nominated for a Jeff Award, received an After Dark Award, and was an artistic associate with the Shattered Globe Theater Company.
Cybele’s designs for dance have been seen onstage at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, The Ravinia Festival, and the Krannert Center, among other venues. She has designed for multiple nationally and internationally recognized choreographers including Omar Roman de Jesus, Dinita Clark, Reggie Wilson, Lar Lubovitch, Gregory Maqoma, and Wen-Chung Lin among many others.
While working in Southern California she was commissioned by Disney Imagineering to design costumes for characters as part of a visual installation at a café and tourist attraction at the Disney California Adventure Park. As part of Soulographie, a cycle of 17 plays by Erik Ehn, at the La Mama Theater in New York, she originated the costume designs for Maria Kizito and Thistle.
Cybele is also a textile and installation artist. She explores surface design on fabric through dyeing and painting techniques, and storytelling through multidisciplinary installation projects. She is the recipient of two Chicago CAAP Grants, three Philadelphia Illuminate the Arts Grants, and a Creative Campus Initiative Grant from Wesleyan University, in addition to receiving funding for art exhibits and installations from the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska and the City of Santa Clarita, CA.
Dedicated to building community in her field, Cybele is a member of the Costume Society of America and has been the CSA Program and Events Coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Region since 2022, organizing and overseeing member events in New York, Washington D.C., Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
BFA - Visual Communications, Ohio University
MFA - Costume Design, Ohio University
Find more about Cybele at her website - www.cybelemoon.com
