Andrea Torres Viedma

She is a PhD candidate in Dance Studies at the University of Roehampton, UK. She earned an MFA Creative Practice awarded by Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in partnership with Siobhan Davies Dance and Independent Dance, UK. She also has a BA (Hons) in Dance and a PGCert on Foundations for Contemporary Critique for Performing Arts both at the Universidad de Chile.

Since 2007 she has been teaching and doing her own choreographic work and dance practices combining elements of contemporary dance and Afro-Latin American dances, with a feminist and decolonial approach from South America. 

Concerning choreography and creative practice she, along with Jose Rojas Navea, founded TorresRojas CuerpoCreativo, a creative realm for the performing arts (2007-2014) where she directed several pieces, as well as collaborative projects. In addition, she has been dancing with different choreographers, performing both nationally and internationally (Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Canada and UK). She also has experience in terms of Management working at Red Danza Independiente, and also has curated dance within Festival Días de Danza at Centro Cultural de España in Chile for three years.

She has been awarded FONDART – the Chilean Government grant – for creating and producing choreographic works, for scholarships and internships, and for dance research. She is a Recipient of Becas-Chile (2015-2017 and 2018-2022) – Scholarship for postgraduate studies awarded by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT). She is also one of the Recipients of the 2016-17 Gill Clarke Bursary – Leverhulme Arts Scholars Award, awarded by Independent Dance and Siobhan Davies Dance (UK).

Currently, she is part of Kuriche an online platform committed to disseminate research and artistic practices addressing the notion of the ‘Afro’ within the chilean context. She also explore weaving practices from South America and introduces weaving methaphors into her dance practice. 

In addition, her doctoral research is focused on contemporary dance improvisation in Chile and the notions of time, parar, encounter and community. By connecting Chilean contemporary dance with decolonial feminisms from South America such as Feminisms from Abya Yala, and with epistemologies of the South, particularly Andean thought, the research aims to devise an original practice concerned with finding different ways of encountering each other (practitioners) and moving together approaching improvisation as a communitarian practice.

Photo: Fabian Cambero