FELIX CRUZ
Felix Cruz is a Permanent Artist in Residence and also serves on the [nueBOX] staff as Marketing Director
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a queer performance dance artist, it is my responsibility to create work that transgresses heteronormative standards. While acknowledging my western concert dance upbringing, I search for ways to make gender, race, and sexuality fluid. Creating ways all bodies can move, create, and coexist together is the ultimate goal. Through my practice-based research, I am curious in physically dissecting the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Through collaborative platforms and approaches, my creative work lays on a foundation of communal minds. By this, I mean, I am interested in creating collaborative work that strengthens the community while still respecting our differences. Utilizing popular culture is the crux of my practice-based research. Fully embodying the social construction of popular culture to create kinesthetic empathy is the most intriguing possibility to me as a performance dance artist. I believe the more we can allow ourselves to acknowledge the social construction popular culture has on us, the more we can create affective art that transgresses hetero-patriarchal systems. I work this way to give voices to the queerly oppressed. As Madonna once said “If I can't be daring in my work or the way I live my life, then I don't really see the point of being on this planet.” I wish to create an artistic practice that gives room for queer and daring voices to be heard.
BIO
Felix Cruz received their BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2010. After completing their undergraduate studies, Cruz began to tour nationally and internationally with choreographer Ishmael Houston-Jones for the revival of Houston-Jones’s piece THEM. In addition, Cruz worked with mentor, friend, and collaborator Charli Brissey on the inception and growth of Maeko Productions. In the three years Cruz worked with Houston-Jones and Brissey, Cruz's artistic voice began to manifest into dance pieces Cruz presented in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Baltimore. During this time, Cruz began to realize their passions for teaching dance and creating dance works; which ultimately lead them to their MFA in Dance at Arizona State University, which was received in 2017. Cruz has presented work throughout the Phoenix area, as well as Vienna, Austria when they attended Impulstanz in 2015. The manifestation of Cruz’s experiences can be found in their dance collective, CRUZ CONTROL COLLECTIVE. Since its inception in 2015, CCC has been awarded a space grant at San Diego Dance Theatre, a SEED Residency through nue[box], an Artist in Residence position at Florida Dance Festival, a Residency for Beta Dance Festival, and presented work at Blaktina 2018. In addition, CCC has been asked to participate at many Phoenix community events for their daring and boisterous aesthetic. As the artistic director, Cruz intends to create work that is a social commentary on the affect popular culture has on the world; through a queer lens. Through embodying practices such as teaching, creating, and dialoguing, CRUZ CONTROL COLLECTIVE seeks to create dance for social change.