Gabriel Olivella
- info
- 20 hours ago
- 2 min read
//Dancer and performer
//January -February 2026
Gabriel Olivella is a dancer and movement performer originally from Colombia, currently based in Montreal. His practice crosses contemporary dance and performance, drawing on a multidisciplinary vocabulary that integrates dance, oral storytelling and photography. With an initial background in human geography, Gabriel broadened his career by studying dance and improvisation in Canada and Germany, before going on to study contemporary dance in Cyprus. This nomadic journey has profoundly marked his artistic approach, infusing his work with themes of adaptation, cultural diversity, memory and posthumanism. He has created and performed pieces of instant composition.
El Boga Residency
During his residency, Gabriel will explore the memory of the river as a living archive. He will research and rescue oral accounts, gestures and material traces linked to the Magdalena River, understanding water not only as a landscape but also as a carrier and repository of collective memory.
Gabriel also seeks to create a hybrid scenic and audiovisual language, experimenting with video dance as a means of intertwining movement, voice and image, generating new forms of narration. Gabriel will offer inclusive and participatory workshops, aimed at both adults and children, which activate the participants' bodily memory through somatic practices, improvisation and creative resources such as dance, drawing and psycho-magic. These workshops seek to open a dialogue with water and natural resources, encouraging reflection on our interdependence with the territory and awakening actions of sustainability and care. Gabriel proposes two three-hour movement workshops, one for adults (18 years and older) and one for children. The aim is to offer an accessible and creative space, where no previous dance experience is required, only curiosity, a willingness to play and a desire to move.
The intention is to activate the bodily memory of the Mompox community, inviting participants to reconnect with their natural environment through somatic and psycho-magical practices. The process seeks to re-establish a dialogue with that which has been forgotten but still inhabits everyday life: the relationship with water and the management of natural resources, both in their abundance and scarcity.
@oliva_roja
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