Gustavo Fijalkow (English)

Dr Gustavo Fijalkow is an academic and practitioner. He trained as a dancer in Argentina, Germany and the Netherlands. As a professional dancer and performer, he worked internationally, exploring traditional and academic dance forms as well as youth theatre and site-specific, experimental and interdisciplinary formats. He has collaborated with artists from various disciplines in diverse contexts and projects. As a curator, he has (co)curated and (co)conceived dance and interdisciplinary festivals, including Crossings Dance Festival (tanzhaus NRW / Düsseldorf, DE), playoff'06 (Theater Consol / Gelsenkirchen, DE), KulturdifferenzTanz (Kunsthaus Rhenania / Cologne, DE). He was British Council Fellow at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale (UK/IT), juror for the Hull Dance Prize (UK) and Clinicien Dramaturge for Festival TransAmériques (CA). His soundscape ‘Suggeritori', produced in Venice, was exhibited at RIBA North gallery (Liverpool, UK). For ten years he was Creative Producer and Production Manager of DIN A13 tanzcompany, Germany's pioneering mixed-abled dance company, with whom he co-conceived and managed international mixed-abled co-productions with numerous African, Asian and South American artists. Gustavo received his M.A. in International Arts Management with the master's thesis "Bloodbath-Bloodbond. A historical snapshot of the cultural work of Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv (D, 2010)" and his PhD with the dissertation "National Dance Platforms. A comparative study of the cases in Germany, Israel, the UK and Sri Lanka (UK, 2020)". He has written for academic and professional publications and is also a member of the editorial board of "TURBA: the journal for global practices in live arts curation" (CA). He has conceived, curated and talks in has lectured at universities. He has developed and moderated formats to further discourses on performing arts and their contexts in light of globalisation, ableism post-coloniality and intersectionality. On the initiative of LOFFT - DAS THEATER (Leipzig), DE Gustavo led the establishment of FORWARD DANCE COMPANY of LOFFT - DAS THEATER in 2020, of which he has been the artistic project director to date. Since 2022, he has significantly contributed to the development of the programm UNIque@dance (initiated by DIN A 13 tanzcompany), with the aim of expanding the imagination and realities of body images in professional dance education.

Furthering links:

Dancing Europe: Identities, Languages, Institutions

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Nicole_Haitzinger_Dancing_Europe?id=SNdWEAAAQBAJ&hl=de

TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation

https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/turba/turba-overview.xml

FORWARD DANCE COMPANY von LOFFT - DAS THEATER

https://www.lofft.de/projekte/forward-dance-company

UNIque@dance

https://www.din-a13.de/de/unique-at-dance

Photo: Gera Perl