Islas Canarias & Galicia

CANARY ISLANDS

The Laboratory for Performing Arts and Citizenship of the Canary Islands (LAV-C) is a platform dedicated to fostering and protecting the arts from the Canary Islands. This sustainable project focuses on creation, research, production, audience development, presentation, and the advancement of cultural practices and policies around contemporary performing arts and their direct and active relationship with audiences. Since 2012, LAV-C has offered transformative experiences through co-productions, artistic residencies, presentation programs, audience engagement projects, and initiatives fostering participation and critical thinking.

Darío Barreto Damas
A dancer from the Canary Islands, Darío Barreto Damas moves between Tenerife, Sofia and Skopje. His artistic practice investigates dance as an autonomous form of knowledge, as well as dis-identification practices as a mediation mechanism. Trained at Teatro Victoria (Tenerife), Institut del Teatre (Barcelona), DOCH – School of Dance and Circus (Stockholm) and the University of Giessen (Germany), he has worked as a dancer, co-creator and performer with Cullberg, Aleksandar Georgiev, Deborah Hay, Cristina Caprioli, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Philip Berlin and Poliana Lima, among others. He co-initiated the Imaginative Choreographic Center (ICC), co-founded the artistic team STEAM ROOM, and is a board member of the Piedebase association in the Canary Islands. Currently, he co-directs LAV-C together with Beatriz Bello, a space for research, production and audience development around contemporary performing arts and their social relevance.

Aleksandar Georgiev
Also known as Ace, Aleksandar Georgiev is a choreographer and dancer whose work delves into the radical tenderness of the human body. His recent projects explore themes such as the politicisation of the anus, “reading from behind”, and nostalgia as a method of poetic archiving. In 2022, he received the prestigious National ICARUS Award for The Power of S, and in 2023 he was nominated again for his solo ATRÁS and the performative lecture Anal Body / Anal Politics. Since 2008, he has developed choreographic collaborations and dance projects in diverse cultural and geographic contexts, working with structures such as Garage Collective, InterimKultur, Lokomotiva, LAV and Piedebase.

In 2008, together with Darío Barreto Damas and Zhana Pencheva, he co-founded STEAM ROOM and the Imaginative Choreographic Center (ICC). Committed to denationalising artistic and cultural practices, he promotes shared thinking, collective dreaming and the imagining of alternative futures through choreography. His works, framed within what he terms “radical tenderness”, lean more towards the romantic than the activist or pedagogical, making them sensorial and accessible. From a queer-performative perspective, Aleksandar rereads history not to correct it but to imagine inclusive futures together. His work breaks away from linear time, embracing future nostalgia and speculative poetics. Here, queer is not presented as opposition but as the norm: a foundation for kinetic empathy, sensuality and solidarity, where softness and pleasure become radical acts of resistance.

GALICIA

Colectivo RPM / Residencias Paraíso

Colectivo RPM is a cultural association based in Galicia, founded by artists from dance and the performing arts. Since 2017, they have continuously developed projects in Galicia with a strong commitment to inter-institutional cooperation and to initiatives that promote contemporary creation, research and sector visibility, both regionally and nationally. Alongside their support for artists and creative processes, the collective designs and facilitates contextual actions that bring artistic practice closer to audiences, creating bonds with local communities and fostering an active relationship between art and its environment.

One of their core initiatives is Residencias Paraíso, a network program in collaboration with theatres and partner venues across Galicia. Each year, through an open call, artists are hosted in residence, combining process-based work with public presentations. The project also expands beyond Galicia through Cruceiros Paraíso, establishing collaborations with institutions across Spain and abroad.

Additionally, the collective organises the annual Encuentro Paraíso Illa San Simón, a three-day professional meeting on San Simón island (Redondela), gathering more than 50 sector professionals, and develops annual laboratories in partnership with the Auditorio de Galicia.

Caterina Varela and Félix Fernández
Galician artists and cultural managers, Caterina Varela and Félix Fernández are co-founders of Colectivo RPM and Caterina is the director, and Félix the co-coordinator of the Residencias Paraíso program, one of the most important support platforms for dance and performing arts in Galicia.

Caterina Varela is an artist, curator and cultural manager. Originally from Galicia, she combines artistic creation with the coordination of cultural projects around residencies, audience engagement and curatorial practice. Since 2009, she has co-directed La Macana with Alexis Fernández, performing in over thirty countries. She also led TRC Danza – Expanded Programming at Teatro Rosalía de Castro in A Coruña (2014–2022), and collaborates with institutions as a curator, mediator and advisor.

Félix Fernández is a multidisciplinary artist and musician. With a degree in Fine Arts and training in dance and performance, his work spans video, electronic music, installation, illustration, photography and performance art, as well as hybrid languages that combine these disciplines. He has received numerous awards, taught contemporary creation workshops in various institutions, founded and directed Presente Continuo Camp/LAB, and currently leads INNFLEXIA, a curatorial project exploring the connections between electronic music and other artistic practices.